She isn't even 17 yet but after church she just had to go to the missionary training class. I'm still shocked at how hard it hit me.

I've got to do something but I don't know what. I don't want to overreact. It could just be that there is a "guy" who is also attending......I would be fine with that. If she's just looking to make time with a guy then great. If she really wants to go on a mission then that's a different thing altogether.

Right now I'm leaning toward taking her out to dinner and just ease into a discussion on how difficult a mission really is. I'd want to cover how easy it is for people to Google Mormonism and discuss what kinds of things they are going to find. I don't want to come across as bashing the church but, point out how hard it is to believe this stuff if you haven't been raised in it.

I want her to know that it isn't her fault if people don't jump at the chance to join what looks an awful lot like a cult. I just don't know if I can keep a lid on my anger. If not, this could really back fire.

Tough one. Kids come back from those mission prep things all starry-eyed, so maybe it will pass. If you talk to her about how difficult the mission is, she just might think that it's the thing she needs to galvanize herself.

If I were a guy preparing someone for a mission, I'd hand them the CES letter and a list of the LDS essays and state that no missionary should ever be able to preach the gospel without knowing the answers to every question posed in the letter and essays. The offer to pay entirely for her mission if she can adequately answer every concern found in the letter and essays.

Well, at least you have a good indication that she's not leaning towards atheism. So, that's a good thing!

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, at least you have a good indication that
> she's not leaning towards atheism. So, that's a
> good thing!


It's a good thing for him.

Since it started being defined and regulated by non-atheists?

Another answer would be that it's bad when a really hot christian girl tells me she won't sleep with an atheist, and we're already half naked. Do I lie, and thus displease the ghawd of atheists?

Or do I just move on?

Or try to move on but keep posting about it?

Koriwhore is the poster who froths at the mouth re: atheism.

Koriwhoremonger is a different guy.

I've been walking a fine line here. I tell my daughter all about what a time and money waste a mission is but her mother and I went and she it bound and determined to go. It is driving me nuts.

If I were you, I would not discuss the mission. I would take her to dinner and talk about her dreams and brainstorm ways to make them come true. College in a beautiful place? Study abroad? Service work/volunteering abroad or in interesting US cities? Internship in a place she may want to be? Art in Paris.... Theatre in London.... Publishing, fashion or film production in NYC... Congressional intern in DC.... Teaching poor kids in the Appalachians, LA, or Bali... Work in a national forest helping the Rangers or in one of the lodges.... Work at Disneyland or Universal Studios....Teaching ESL in Asia.... The world is full of opportunities much more appealing than a mission to Wisconsin.

Show her that there are so many ways she can serve others and have an adventure. Help her apply now, long before she turns 19.

Here are a few links to start you off. Some options are pricey, but you can get generous scholarships for study abroad and there are also paid options. You can do special programs through just about any college even if you don't go there, especially in summer. UC Berkeley has a cool archaeology class where you dig in Greece. NYU and UCLA have summer film programs. Dozens of schools offer study abroad or exchange programs that don't require regular admission. Look at Americorps for paid service that gives you a scholarship at the end.

http://usagapyearfairs.org/programs/
http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2015 12:44PM by vh65.

I also love the idea of keep it positive. I don't know that I want to completely ignore the mission topic. I wan't her to know that she can do whatever she wants. I also want her to know that I have a responsibility to give her pertinent information.

Don't forget the Peace Corps, where you really get to serve others!

I really like these ideas. You might also talk up rushing a sorority or going on the ultimate epic adventure: Semester at Sea. It costs a lot of $$$, but per a friend who did it, is life-changing. It's also per her report an excellent way to meet potential highly eligible marriage partners. :)

http://www.semesteratsea.org/

How about playing up college in a big way? If that is one of her goals, maybe even visit a campus or something. You've got a year or more before she is 19, so maybe you can gently steer her to at least getting a year of college in before she goes. She might change her mind once she gets away from missionary prep class.

She is already in line for a scholarship or two. If a mission is going to have a negative impact on money for school then I think it will be a whole lot easier to persuade her.

Take her out to dinner and tell her you can respect her wishes to go a mission as long as she makes it an INFORMED decision. She needs to study up on ALL the issues of the church by reading BOTH sides. Then hand her the CES Letter and ask her to read it with an open mind. Tell her its the ONE thing you will ask of her and you will never bother her again about the church.

http://cesletter.com/

Write on the top "for further reading please go to www.mormonthink.com"

If she reads that letter I can almost guarantee she will rethink her plan to go on a mission.

I might start with the essays on the church's web site. If I introduce them in the right way. What I really want to point out is how I was demonized and labeled as "anti-mormon" for mentioning the very things that are now published as facts by the church.

And hopefully she'll lose interest in the mission.

I think the way you have suggested handling it is the best approach Koriwhoremonger. Every potential Missionary should be told what they are up against ( the cult image to the nonmormon world and the lousy history a google search away, no investigator will listen to the satan explanation).It is only fair and decent to let them know.

wonder if the mormon teens would be interested in this guys podcast
maybe it would make some discussion in small amounts.

http://mybookofmormonpodcast.com/

oddly enough, after getting through the intro all on my own, this was my go to guy for pretending I was reading the book of Mormon while attending lessons. The Lds guy sent me to sleep, although I am an atheist so mybookofmormon podcast was providing me with all the confirmation bias I needed.
It came to pass, Drink. Yea.

I wonder if your daughter is looking for a way to be 'safe' for a couple more years. At 16, she's about to be thrown 'out'- of the school she knows, the family she's been with, the city she grew up in. Maybe she's just apprehensive, and a mission is a way to keep feeling like you're being taken care of.

And she will get kudos for going! Instant praise (for just going, not for anything she accomplished), security, doing something for God... what's not to love?

Help her see what HER goals in life are and how to accomplish them; it's sooo easy to let the church just do it all for her. All she has to do is go to the bishop, fill out some paper work and bang-o she's set for another year.

Maybe it's time you told her about how your mission REALLY was. Unless it was a fun experience, and then, you can't blame her for wanting to follow in dear-old-dad's/mom/s footsteps.

As a teen/ early 20s, i thot a mission was an easy thing to do. Every day get up and do what you're told. Write home once a week. knock on some doors, while having a good time with your companion walking up the street. How difficult is this?? Compared to having to work hard at university and actually perform/ put out. I thot my bf had it easy, while i took the hard route (no cash for mission) and went to school.



just a thot.

good luck.

karin

I would tell her she needs to be prepared for the arguments against the church that she will hear. Tell her you support her choices, including a mission, even though she knows you don't believe the church is true. This gives her unconditional love to contrast with the incredibly conditional love she will experience as a Mormon sister missionary.

Tell her that she can prepare for the arguments by reading the church essays and memorizing appropriate quotes. They are such garbage that a 7th grader can see through them--but more importantly they are an acknowledgment by the church of certain facts which, if you were to tell her, she would reject them as anti-Mormon propaganda.

Tell her you trust her judgment to stand up for herself and to take personal responsibility for her own medical and safety needs. In other words, always follow your gut if you feel like you are unsafe, unsanitary or need a doctor. Only you know when your body is not all right.

Give her an emergency credit card which she can use to call you, buy an airline ticket, or whatever if war breaks out or a volcano erupts (spontaneously laugh here LOL).

Tell her a young woman should never be told she cannot call her parents if she is raped or injured. She will say they would never do that, but she will remember what you said, especially if you are calm and matter-of-fact.

She may not realize that she could go on many different learning abroad adventures, as the posters above have indicated. You can tell her that you have researched mission alternatives for travel and study in foreign countries and will be happy to give her the information if she is interested.

It is shocking, koriwhoremonger, to hear your child say they want even more indoctrination, but keep in mind that she has a romanticized image of what a mission entails and the statistics are showing that sister missionaries come home at a greater rate than their male counterparts. For young women, it is not a "right of passage" that guarantees them a quality spouse. So they do not have that burden to overcome.

Best

Kathleen Waters

Excellent advice. Thanks!

It appears she thinks she has unlimited choices,so you need to educate her about reality.
You can stay positive but let her know in no uncertain terms that you will NOT pay for a mission.

Moreover, letting any scholarships go would be the height of insanity.
Be sure to point out that you will not pick up the slack if she lets any scholarships go.

koriwhoremonger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> I've got to do something but I don't know what. I
> don't want to overreact. It could just be that
> there is a "guy" who is also attending......I
> would be fine with that. If she's just looking to
> make time with a guy then great. If she really
> wants to go on a mission then that's a different
> thing altogether.
>

Can you just nonchalantly make a comment about her attending the mission prep class? Ask how it went? Is a mission something she is seriously considering? Was it something they suggested to all the youth to attend who are juniors or seniors year in high school?

I would start with that first. Then if it is something that she is seriously considering, go over the pros and cons with her.

Our oldest is the only one of our kids to go on a mission. (We were completely inactive before any of the others reached missionary age) She was kind of in a funk with college, was turning 21 and unsure of her major and wanted to do something different...so of course if you're in the heart of the morridor, your next step as an unmarried 21 year old female is to go on a mission. She also thought that since she had international travel experience and a current passport that she would for sure be called to a foreign mission. She was extremely disappointed to be called stateside and to a region of the country she was familiar with...the deep south. She hated her mission. The work was hard, no real converts...just perpetual investigators, and companions that she did not like. She was very excited when she found out that she could come home a month early. Unfortunately, the bad experience of her mission was not enough to make her want to leave the church, yet.

Idealistic youngsters won't be dissuaded by being told something is going to be difficult. Now if you could help her see that it is an ignoble and pointless exercise to go on a mission that could help your cause. Can you help her learn some critical thinking and more acceptance of other traditions, such that she is not so sure the world needs mormonism?

It is certainly true a lot of idealistic teenagers aren,t easily dissuaded by something being difficult but I think it is a good way of introducing mormonism through the eyes of nonmormons in a non confrontational fashion. If handled with kidd gloves.

Apparently, there are things like eating disorders which will get your mission call denied.

http://www.theculturalhallpodcast.com/2015/02/a-denied-mission-call-ep-159-the-cultural-hall/

Who'd a thunk?

Sad to hear this young Mormon talking about her life. Maybe there is a list somewhere for how a kid could get denied????

Missionary training class? is this new?

Reading your subject line made me think of my nevermo parents' thoughts when I told them I was going on a mission.

Even though my parents gave me news articles about the fallacy of the church when I joined 1 1/2 years prior to leaving on a mission, nothing swayed me. Nothing would. I was stuck in my beliefs and had made up my mind.

They agreed to support me emotionally, but did not help financially (which I understood since they weren't members). I was at least realistic enough about their stance that I didn't preach to them while I was on my mission, but just shared the joys and pains of living with certain companions, as well as the beauty of the areas in which I lived. We wrote letters consistently about every week, back and forth. It's actually nice to go back to that correspondence between us because it wasn't the mushy mormon stuff I would write to my morgbot friends, or what I would write in my mission journal.

It took me several more years for the truth to seep back into me, and when I left the morg, I thanked my parents for sticking next to me, no matter what. They said I had still been mostly "me" with them, even though they knew I believed differently. But it was still damn hard. For everyone.

I wish you well, and hope you'll be able to have an excellent discussion with your daughter. Good luck!

I feel the distress. I'm wondeing if I'll be in a similar position in the same time frame. My plan is to encourage 4 years of college, (not chruch based), I'll help with that. Hopefully she'll learn critical thinking skills. Her TBM mom and step dad will have to fund the mission.