Way way back in the 80s in my little portion of mormondom, it was not uncommon to see returned missionaries married to someone from their former mission.

In my ward we had six such couples. Two married from US missions. One married a sister missionary from his mission, one married a convert and four were married to foreign brides. Three from latin America and one from the Philippines. All four couples would be mixed race.

The other wards in our stake were similar.

Once in my travels I met a very nice American lady that returned to her former mission in South America to marry an Elder she met there.

Does this trend continue 40 years later?

I've lost contact with most of them. I only know of two. Both marriages are intact.

Near the turn of the century my MP in a foreign country encouraged us in our final interviews to marry any gals who might've caught our attention during the mission, as long as nothing improper occurred during the mission, saying there was a lack of worthy penishood holders in the country for all the sisters to marry. I know of several such cases from my mission, between elders and sister missionaries as well as elders and members.

'marriage is a great institution, but, Who wants to live in an institution?'

Groucho Marx - Marriage is a wonderful institution, but...
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Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution. He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of. By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Mae West - Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not...
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Quotes to Explore. Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory. It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry …

I think the main reason that the age limit for female missionaries was cut from 21 to 19 was specifically to encourage more missionary marriages.

I have no idea what the percentages are, but even when I went, 50 years ago now, two missionaries marrying, or missionaries marrying people from the country they served in, were both fairly common occurrences.

All the cases I know of where a missionary married a local, the missionary was always male. Often the spouse was someone they met at BYU, rather than in the mission field.

I know one elder who married a Brazilian and moved to Brazil. He's still there last I heard.

During my twelve short years in the morg, I've seen it happen once. There was a gentleman that was a recent convert (converted just before I was) in what used to be the Severn Ward that had married a woman that had served her mission there in Maryland. She was a part of the Severn ward for a bit. I'm not sure of when their relationship started, but I do know that when her mission was over, it was not long before she left Utah and came back to Maryland to marry the guy.

There was a guy that lived at the end of my street growing up. Kind of a wallflower, and I never remembered him dating much or at all in HS years. He went on a mission at 19. He met a gal on his return flight. She was also returning home from a mission.

They ended up engaged and married within three or four weeks. Of course a Temple wedding.

One of my younger son's friends came home from his mission very infatuated with a young woman he had met while serving in Central America. Many of us thought that it couldn't possibly work out, maybe she was a gold-digger looking for a ticket to America.

I'm glad we were wrong. They have been married for about 20 years now. Her English is marvelous, and as far as I know, they remain very happy.

catnip Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One of my younger son's friends came home from his
> mission very infatuated with a young woman he had
> met while serving in Central America. Many of us
> thought that it couldn't possibly work out, maybe
> she was a gold-digger looking for a ticket to
> America.
>
> I'm glad we were wrong. They have been married for
> about 20 years now. Her English is marvelous, and
> as far as I know, they remain very happy.

It's always good to hear a happy ending. I know someone in my former ward who married a Filipina over twelve years ago. They are both inactive now, but they seem to be very well suited to each other and when you see them out and about they make a decent couple. That goes against all the stereotypes of such marriages - that the wives are only in it for the money or they divorce after a year or two. And yes, she speaks very good English as well.

I went on my mission in the Philippines and I was constantly hit up with filipinas who wanted to marry me. I really had little game back home but I felt at the time that it would be inappropriate to marry one of the filipinas from my mission. In my head I thought they just really wanted a ticket out of there.

So I returned from my mission and married the first blonde who would give me the time of day. What a HUGE mistake! She was awful and controlling. Having Borderline Personality Disorder didn't help her. I divorced her after I left the cult but we were married for 14 years.


I sometimes wonder what would have happened to me if I were to marry one of the filipinas who were hitting on me. Would I still be in the cult? One of the reasons why I started to question my cult was that my marriage was horrible and yet I felt like I was doing everything I could to be a good mormon.

I'm glad to hear stories of people who married a filipina and both got out of the cult together. That is awesome!

Another couple....my nephew & his wife met on their German missions.

Both about 20 years ago....still married.

The exmo couple have 3 kids out of the church.


Nephew's 6 kids are still mormon.....I'm waiting for at least one to escape.




I'm the Great Aunt to avoid ....I encourage doubts & research.

Tutu KJ

On my mission, an American elder LEFT his mission early and married the girl, staying in Australia.

A companion of mine eventually married a girl he baptized.(but years later and AFTER going home.)

Two missionaries from my German mission married soon after they got home. This was in the 80s. They are still happily married.

Dear friend of mine converted and did a mission in Utah. Met a girl whole serving fell in love. Got married shortly after being released. Moved back here to Lethbridge. Was diagnosed with MS. Moved to Utah (Logan). Had 2 kids. His Molly Mormon wife divorced him.

One of the main functions of BYU is to bring together marriage-aged people from places with small dating pools of "worthy" Mormons. Missions can serve the same purpose, but it's trickier since missionaries are supposed to be emotionless, hormone-free proselytizing robots.

My family's gene pool tends to produce people who look like lumps of mashed potatoes. So when a nephew married a beautiful Argentine woman he met on his mission, there was danger her lovely genes would be overpowered by ours. Fortunately it was the other way around. They produced three stunningly beautiful daughters and one sufficiently handsome son.

DH & I met on our mission. We were friends at first then realized we had similar outlooks and goals, and yeah, we liked each other. Agreed to meet up after returning home. Married 55 years, left church 38 years ago. Frequently life was a real challenge, but here we are now. He’s writing his mission memoirs. He was a counselor in the mission presidency. We’ve been back to Argentina 4 or 5 times.

My mission taught me how misogynistic the church is. When I got home I found out it’s much worse for married women than even being an LM.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2020 11:39PM by Phantom Shadow.

Dear Mrs. Phantom Shadow, what we're your D-days like?

And how many missions was Argentina divided into?

I loved the abbreviation, 'LM'

The Argentine North mission was formed just before I was called. Our Language Training group was mostly bound for the Northern Mission.

LM was the common designation back them, at least when we weren't las hermanas.

On Monday mornings we had a District meeting at one of the branches. I only remember the ones where most of us were called out for our sins. After the meeting--recreation. Often a group of us would go to a restaurant together--in one zone it was a German restaurant. Newer missionaries would be treated to stories about the fates of older ones who didn't have a great after-mission-life. I only remember a few times when there was a group sports activity.

After I was in Argentina about 6 months the chapel building program wasn't doing well, so we would go work on chapels in progress. I remember how much happiness I gave to the local Argentine work missionaries when I participated in operating the block-making machine. Lots of laughs for them, but I managed to make 2-3 cinder blocks.

I don't remember everyone going to the movies together, but some days a few of us would go to downtown B.A. to LaValle, where the movies theaters were--and catch a show. When I was a brand new missionary my sr. companion took me to see Phaedra with Anthony Perkins and Melina Merkouri--one I would never have seen at home in Salt Lake City! Wow--steamy!

When I spent almost half my time with Argentine companions rather than with Americans. I learned Spanish really well.I remember in the evenings going to the construction site and sitting around with the work missionaries, all Argentines, while they drank mate, forbidden to us, and talked about the symbolism of the gaucho in Argentine national life. Folklorico was big, we went with members to clubs. Los Chalchaleros were big.

My interactions with the North American missionaries was a less interesting story, however, my DH is working on a memoir of his mission experience. I'll let you know if/when it is published.

Back to Argentina--there were several missionaries who married locals. They got much better-looking,talented wives than they could have attracted back home. And the girls got to go live in the U.S.

In one of the branches there was (allegedly) a club of girls and their mothers who had the object of marrying off the girls to North Americans. The MP warned the elders about getting caught. I was in the branch for a while and the young women were indeed aggressive. One day they grabbed me and did a makeover on me. Lots of eye makeup. Our district leader freaked out when he saw me with eyeliner and nail polish.

If I did the math correctly, you got married the year I left on my mission, so I'm very familiar with LMs.

When I was released in September of '67 and attended the '67 Fall conference mission reunion at the Y, an LM I had had the hots for in Guadalajara showed up and ended up asking me to marry her. When I countered with just dating for the rest if the school year and seeing how things worked out, she said no, because ghawd had revealed to her that she was to be married before the end of October.

Being alive gets weird sometimes.

I've heard stories where it's the guy who's had a revelation he was supposed to marry a certain young woman, but this is the first time I've heard that the girl had the voice in her head.

Even when I was an active Mormon I would have run like hell from someone like this.

Well, she had breasts, so ...

Perhaps that's what she thought of you, too!

Know of twp male RMs who married people they converted. One is still married to the convert, the other marriage ended years ago.

There was one family in my ward growing up which had two sons go to the Philippines; both ended up marrying women they had converted on their missions.

This was 20 years ago; I don't know how common it is anymore.

My nephew married a woman he baptized on his mission in Mexico. Kid number two is on the way.

My niece just married a fellow returned missionary after they returned from Russia.

Married Mormons tend to stay Mormon.

Did you mean to say "married missionaries tend to stay Mormon"?

That works too. The data is pretty clear that young people who marry tend to be more religious than those who stay single.

OK as long as they don't have children...


just sayin'

I'm acquainted with a fellow who went back to Mexico after his mission and brought the girl of his dreams back to the states where they married in the temple. She has become very outspoken against illegal immigration because apparently she immigrated the right way.