I have to keep changing my screen name because my stories will give me away and I'm chicken.

My family were all converts and I was the first to go on a mission. I was sent to a European mission known for its low baptism rate. I spent the majority of my mission knocking on doors in all types of wether. It was brutal. Rejection and feeling like a failure for lack of baptisms took a huge toll on me but I managed to make it to the end and felt I'd given it my all. I was proud of myself.

When I came home I wasn't expecting any kind of a reward for my free missionary labor in Europe. Since I was the first to go on a mission there was no tradition or expectation of a reward. Imagine how excited I was when my mom told me there was a surprise waiting for me in the driveway. Instead of a shiny new Honda Civic or another type of economy car like I had hoped for, I had one of the biggest letdowns of my life when I looked out the window and saw a used Ford Pinto. Before my mission I'd heard reports of Pintos catching on fire when rear ended because of a faulty fuel tank. There were fatalities and lawsuits. It was the kind of car you'd give to your enemy, not someone you were proud of for serving a mission. And if getting a death-trap car wasn't bad enough, it also had a personalized missionary themed license plate that said SIS SUE (Sue is not my real name). I was a sister missionary, hence the "SIS" followed by the first three letters of my name. I was mortified. Mormons would think it was stupid and nevermos would wonder what it meant. I lived in an area where there weren't many Mormons.

My Stepfather purchased the car for me and I tried to look pleased and grateful because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Later I found out that he had actually purchased the car for my brothers while I was on my mission. They drove it to/from BYU, over the Sierra Nevada mountains. They thought they were too cool for a used Pinto and tried to trash it. By the time it was given to me it was a wreck. The first day I drove it the fan belt broke. It was constantly in the shop and lasted less than two years until it was inoperable and sold for parts. I soon had a job and purchased my next car, a used Toyota. It lasted a lot longer than the Pinto.

Were any of you rewarded with a new car after your mission?

He said that he'd spent enough on my mission so he wasn't paying for college. I graduated via student loans and scholarships.

Some definitely had it harder than others. I know people who were rewarded with a shiny new car when they got home and others who had to pay for their own missions, cars, education, etc. I was lucky that my stepfather paid for my education and my mission. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for my Pinto but I seriously thought it would blow up if rear ended and was terrified to drive it. I don't know what made me think about it today...

Actually it was the model year after they had resolved the fuel tank issue, but somehow I found a 2x2 ft sign that said "flammable" like those used on trucks and taped it to the back of the car. Never had a problem with people tailgating. It had 4-on-the-floor so we all learned to drive stick. A few years later knowing how to drive manual transmission helped me get a great- paying summer job to help pay for my college. After I had moved away to college, one of my younger siblings had the misfortune of driving it when the engine failed going up a hill - wasn't worth the cost of fixing it by that point.

I wish I'd thought about putting a sign that said "flammable" on my Pinto, LOL. My Pinto was a mid 70s model, I think. I drove it home from BYU and it wouldn't go more than 35mph up the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I was really happy when I reached the top and started going downhill. My stepfather must have had "sucker" written all over him when he purchased that lemon.

I new someone that was.

I didn't go on a mission.

However my brother who did, sold me his newer car as soon as he got married because he could no longer afford the car payments. So he transferred title over to me.

It was my first car, and his second. Our parents didn't give us cars - we bought them ourselves.

I drove a Pinto in college. That was owned by the US Postal Service. I had the same concern you did about the back end/s exploding. Thankfully no such thing happened.

It was the 1/2 ton and one ton postal vans that broke down while driving that caused me the most angst.

My parents gave me a two-year-old Acura LT with 21,000 miles on it as a twenty-first birthday present immediately after my mission. I drove that car for the next seven years and had to do nothing to it but routine maintenance. It was a great gift.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2017 06:42PM by scmd.

No cars, but coming home one month early created unforeseen problems with college tuition. I couldn't take a full load of classes because the damn morg demanded that my mom pay for the last missionary installment of $350 of a 2 year mission (she also paid the full $350 for the month I came home in. While the morg wouldn't pro-rate the amount of days of my last month (8 days) that my parents paid; the mission did! I had to ration a meager $30 that was deposited instead of the usual $130. The morg stole some $670 and that should have been spent on my education.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No cars, but coming home one month early created
> unforeseen problems with college tuition. I
> couldn't take a full load of classes because the
> damn morg demanded that my mom pay for the last
> missionary installment of $350 of a 2 year mission
> (she also paid the full $350 for the month I came
> home in. While the morg wouldn't pro-rate the
> amount of days of my last month (8 days) that my
> parents paid; the mission did! I had to ration a
> meager $30 that was deposited instead of the usual
> $130. The morg stole some $670 and that should
> have been spent on my education.

That sucks.

You better believe that sucks.

If that happened to me, or my child, I'd be deducting every penny of that $670 TIMES 2 ($1340) from my "tithing" to even the score !!!!!

Oh, yes, I guess that did happen. I forgot about that. It was not a "new" car but it was a shiny green Mustang in pretty good condition.

I might have been had I gone on one...but Dad would have made me work for it...a valuable lesson I'm grateful he taught me. One of the guys in my ward got a '62 T-Bird convertible when he got back. White with red leather. Bitchin' ride.

My sister attended BYU for three and a half years and kept changing her major every semester because of bad grades. She got married in her fourth year without completing a degree and left school. My dad paid for nearly all of her BYU expenses.

I paid for most of my mission and I paid for all of my undergrad expenses by scholarships and working. I got married before I finished and was going back East to graduate school when I graduated. I drove a car I bought for $350 when I was in High School. My dad was so pissed at my sister he bought me a tiny new toyota as a graduation present saying that he had saved for years to send me to college I might as well use the money for something.

No new car here. Had to go off to USU in an old truck that wasn't used on our farm much any more.

Sure do wish I had that old chevy truck back. It went from Tucson, Az to Logan, Ut, for all 4 years of my schooling. It never did let me down.

It was a 3 speed column shift with the in-line 250 6.

Memories.....ah the memories.

Given a car for serving a mission? lol lol lol

No, but I did get kicked out of the house less roughly a week after returning home because I refused to participate in our forced, torturous, hours-long marathon-session family home evenings.

Went to stay with friends and never went back (to live). Good riddance. I had less than $100 to my name and no idea of what I was going to do in the immediate future, but it was one of the best decisions of my life.

According to my younger sister, my mom was complaining about my 'bad attitude' the next Sunday when they were all on the way home from church (people in our tiny branch asked where I was and my mom didn't know how to respond, since there was no way in hell she was going to tell them the truth). "I just don't understand what her problem is," my mother said. "Well, maybe she was just tired of you treating her like dog crap," replied my sister.

I have a feeling it was a long, quiet ride after that. hahahaha

That is just horrible.

Your parents could've tried cutting you some slack. You were after all, a young adult.

I had a friend who had a green Pinto; I wouldn't go in that thing.when I got out of high school, my parents got me a Toyota Tercel. It lasted a long time. I'm still alive, so it never blew up

I know it'll be hard to believe, but I'm an only child and a spoiled brat.

My parents paid for everything and I always had extra money in the mission field.

At the Y, they paid for my tuition and sent me a monthly stipend. After I got married, they gave me my dad's '62 Buick Skylark convertible and paid for the insurance, kept paying tuition and even kept up the stipend... In retrospect, I should have mentioned to them that I'd gotten a job.

Graduating was like losing a well paying job!!!

Back then, on occasion, I credited ghawd with my good fortune, but of course the reality is that the Bell Shaped Curve makes 'winners' out of a precise percentage of the total population.

My non-Mormon dad kept my Honda for me while I served my mission. He kept it garaged and put new tires and new battery on it for my return. Love you dad!!!! Great little car. Had it ten years and it never let me down.

No new car as a "reward" for two faithful years.
No used car, either.
No place to live (parents had moved, to SLC of all places, while I was out -- I went home to SoCal, not SLC, 'cause I couldn't stand SLC even as a TBM).

My recently-excommunicated (for convenience of my TBM mom, so she could sign up to be a spiritual-child-bearing-slave for eternity to a new TBM husband) dad loaned me his 'spare' truck for a few months, until I had made enough at my job to buy a car.

The TBM side of the family offered and gave no help whatsoever, even though it was they who had talked me into going, and it was they who had emptied my savings account while I was gone (to pay for the mission, of course).

I selfishly thought this was a bit what returning Viet Nam vets must have felt like: you did what you were asked, gave of yourself, worked hard on your tour, tried to follow the rules and do the right thing, only to come home and have nobody give a shit. In hindsight, they had it much worse...