I am a middle-aged woman who joined (and left) the church later in life. I never served a mission, don't have children that served a mission. I have only heard the "sugar-coated" returned missionary talks given at church, when I was a member. I would LOVE to hear about what goes on during a typical day in the mission field.
1. How do most people react when you knock on the door? When you're walking down the street?
2. How do the members treat you? Do they feed you?
3. How much pressure is put on you to bring in baptisms?
I'd love to hear anything and everything, and I'm sure lots of other people here would, too!

1. Most people either don't answer the door or are polite about saying they aren't interested. There are a few who scream out at you "That you are a CULT!" or that we're not Christian and slam the door.
2. The members are rather generous, though it does depend on the area. But you can count on members to feed you a few times a month or in some missions it's practically every day.
3. There's a lot of pressure to get baptisms and new investigators and it is tied directly to your worthiness. "If we were more worthy and we sacrificed more we'd be blessed with more converts" is common thinking.

Typical schedule for me:
6:30 wake up and have personal scripture study
7:00 shower and get dressed
7:30 - 9:30 Breakfast, comp study, and planning for the day
9:30 We must leave the apartment
9:30-6:00 street contacting, knocking, visiting unemployed less actives and investigators
6:00 Dinner at members. Depending on the flavour of the month we might be there all evening or if we wanted to be strict have to leave after 1 hour to continue evening prospecting when families are at home. We'd strive to stay out till 9:30 to make full use of the day testifying of the church.
9:30 Enter apartment. Make a late evening meal, especially if we didn't have a member dinner that night (very often) call up district and zone for reports. Journal writing and get ready for prayer
10:30 Lights out

We'd also have frequent prayers together as a companionship and when possible would kneel on the floor as a man stands no higher than when he is on his knees. There'd also be the joke about the harder we work the better looking our future wife would be.

Thanks, Elder Malin! SOOOO Fascinating! Truly, I read every word with great interest. I hope more ex-missionaries will post!

I scanned and saved my missionary journal--what there is of it--as a PDF. What a guilt-ridden, anxious dweeb I was :-) It was interesting when I read to it to see what I wrote but remember what I was *really* thinking and feeling.

...NEVER sleeping in.
I took mission rules as literal commandments from God.
I never slept in. Got up at 6:30 every day, 7 days a week, holidays too.
I now recognize that I was in a circadian sleep debt. I NEEDED to sleep in sometimes but it wasn't allowed.
I felt guilty for nodding off in my morning reading, cuz I was cheating the Lord of His time, and if the will of my spirit could only overcome the will of my flesh, I'd be able to stay alert reading in the morning.
Speaking of will of the flesh, I didn't masturbate either, well, except once, and I confessed it to the mission prez. He asked me every month therafter if I was worthy.
Had to get out at 9:00 whether we had somewhere to go or not. It was an obedience issue. Knocking on doors at 10:00 am is low yield. You get shift workers trying to sleep. You get stay at home moms for who it's just another interruption. Mostly you get nothing, no one home. You get the elderly, the mentally ill, the poor. Even when people talk to you they usually didn't "get it". Then if you're lucky someone wants to debate you. Always ends in a draw and soon you feel guilty because it's just Satan trying to waste your time, so you make a conscious effort not to. Only rarely was anyone overtly abusive in a way you could remotely call "persecution". But that went a long way in making you FEEL persecuted, and you sort of get off on it like the fire jumpers consider it an achievment to get the pink fire retardant dropped on them.
Oh I could go on and on. It's a whole lifestyle. You become it.

I can't get enough of this - Robert B, share some things from your mission? Specific people you encountered? Doubts? Experience with mission president/leaders?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2011 05:03PM by freegirl10.

Random stuff:

Besides the schedule stuff. I was very lonely. I think I fell in love with a girl every few months. Of course I didn't act on it and of course I felt guilty as hell. The last part of my mission I fell for a Baha'i girl. Very smart and beautiful. The feeling seemed to be mutual. She was friends with an American Baha'i couple living in Argentina. She was leaving for a "mission" ("Pioneering") to Bolivia.

One of my companions had a member girlfriend and she had a breakdown when he left shortly after I arrived. Everyone thought I had ratted him out, but I hadn't. I was a straight-arrow in my behavior but I wasn't a heartless rat. This companion was not a straight-arrow and I've always regretted I didn't not appreciate him for who he was. He was teaching a woman we went to see and he entered his house through a low window. It was distracting teaching her because she had nude portraits of herself hung up in the living room.

One of the members was a black man who did leather and upholstery work. We paid him to make book bags for us. Good man. When the "revelation" on blacks and the Priesthood was publicized I was at the mission home picking up something. One of the APs told me and I though he was joking, so I said sarcastically, "Now they will give it to women next" and walked away leaving him with his mouth open. (Neither of those events would have bothered me, though.)

When I realized the policy had indeed changed, I happily told the black member about it and I was surprised to see *he* wasn't happy about it. He told me he had gotten used to things as they were and didn't want the Priesthood and all that came with it. That was puzzling to my new-convert-20-year-old brain, although I get it now.

I had had kidney surgery on my mission but elected to continue. The mission president and his wife took care of me for several weeks at the mission home after my surgery. President tried to get close to me but I avoided it. I'm not sure why. His wife called me her "Mimoso" ("spoiled one"). President seemed gruff on the outside but was a softy. He had Bruce McConkie leaning on him all the time. Robert Wells was our area rep and seemed like a good guy. He once told us it was easier sometimes in the church to get forgiveness than permission and I think President operated this way, especially to help out a missionary.

While I was in the mission home recovering I was given the task of cleaning out old files and read some letters of a previous mission president, Marvin Brown, to several of his missionaries. He was warm and encouraging and I wished I could meet him. It turned out that after I returned from my mission and began working at the Missionary Training Center I did meet him when he came to work there as well. I got to work with him a bit and I was not at all disappointed as he was as warm and encouraging as his letters had led me to believe he was.

We were often stopped by soldiers asking for identification papers. Argentina at the time was ruled by a military junta and thousands of Argentinians had been "disappeared" in the effort by the government to root out guerrillas and stay in power. The soldiers were young guys like us so we got along fine. The local police were another matter and we steered clear of them. I walked into a neighborhood once to find it surrounding my armed soldiers looking for guerrillas. We found a member's house and sat it out.

My most unusual door approach occurred when I was very sick to my stomach while out tracting and I asked the owner of the door I just knocked on if I could use the bathroom. She was very kind and let me. It would have been very bad for me if she hadn't. No missionary lesson out of that but we had an on-going joke for a while about novel door-approaches.

Lots of stuff. I would say there were a lot of atypical "typical" days :-)

1. Open proselyting was illegal in my mission (Armenia). I never knocked a single door my whole mission. The only time we could talk about the church was if the Armenians asked us. This rarely happened.

2. Armenia is a poor country. They can barely feed themselves much less 2 more 19-26 year old males. I never had a dinner appointment. When we did go to members houses they would make us herbal tea or prepare something very small. Armenia has a lot of middle eastern influence, so it is rude to not give your guest something to eat or drink when they come over.

3. The pressure in my mission to get baptisms was not ueber insane. That is because it was balanced out with trying to retain converts. The Armenia Yerevan mission's retention rate was deplorable.

Schedule for Me:

6:30AM-8 - wake up, shower, and get ready for the day

8-9 - Personal study

9-10 - Companionship study

10-11 - Language study

11-9PM - Missionary work


You guys thought tracting was bad, in Armenia we had to just walk around on the street and hope people would talk to us about the church. Sure we could talk to people, but if we, not them, brought religion up it was a big no no. We would also try to meet with members. Some members were good and others were not. Due to the culture, referrals just did not happen. I got 1 referral my entire mission. We would also do a lot of service projects. We would dig ditches, help them plant their gardens, build houses etc. I really like the service because I could see I was making a difference. The leaders would get pissed at me for all the service I did because "it wasn't helping them in the long run." Oh yeah Elder fuck face (names have been changed), tell that to the Armenians who lived in a shack for 5 years before me, my equally apostate companion, and the branch built them a house. I bet 11/10 people would take a sturdy home before some stupid lesson out of preach my gospel.

I don't remember ever hearing Armenia mentioned when they talked about missions. That really must have been one tough mission.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2011 05:23PM by freegirl10.

It's really amazing in a sense what y'all endured. Y'all should either
1) Individually write a book about your harrowing experience then and as far as since then.
2) Write a book of different stories concerning different missionaries experience(s), trials, tribulations,treatment, etc.

Bet it'd have to be a best seller. One reason is the guys/gals appear as if they're doing just what they "want" to do and always appear "happy"

I served in Germany, but I didn't see alot of Germany. I saw a lot of German doors. Lots of doors. Its mostly a fog of memories, but the doors, I remember the doors. and not the singing ones with Jim Morrison's velvet voice, but the regular, normal doors that are on the fronts of everyone's apartments. I remember the stairs, too, lots of stairs. I don't think there is a single apartment building in Germany that has an elevator. So, yeah, that's it. Thats what a german mission was like. Lots of doors, and lots of stairs.

Yup that is the daily schedule. Some areas we worked really hard and obeyed most of the rules. Other areas I we did a total goof off, other areas and conpanionships were somewhere inbetween.
I happened to have a mission that included Washington D.C.
It was the old Delaware Maryland mission and our name tags said "D.M.M." which stood for Delaware Maryland Mission. but we told cute girls it stood for "Darling Mormon Missionaries".
One 4th of July a member family took us to see the fireworks we sat near the Washington monument the fireworks were great. I came from a little backwater place in the mountians of the northwest. So the D.C. area was a huge change. We went into D.C. a couple of times and watched the Vietnam war demonstrations. Did a tour of the white house. Other times we would go into see the museums on our P days. There were a lot of military bases around and we met a lot of military, NSA, FBI, and a couple of CIA, we probably met a lot more but didn't know it.
We tracted out one military man and when we told him we were missionaries he said it was no use to talk with him because he was a trained killer.
Our mission included Northern Virginia and the Shanendoa Valley over to Quantico. Roanoak was in the mission south of us. if you missed the story from the elder from the Roanoke mission the other day you have to find it. It expressed emotions many of us felt on our missions.
Part of Braddock road was in our mission that was the route Washington took with General Braddock in the French and Indian war. I really liked some of the areas I was in and hated others.
The primary reasons I went on a mission was for my mother and the 2 year ministarial deferment we got while being on a mission.
Our mission included southern new Jersey and I spent two months there. Yea there are stories to tell there to.
One of the reasons I went on a mission was so I could do a slide show fireside for the youth when I got home and give a travel log comming home talk to my home ward.
Wouldn't you know it when I gave my report to my stake president he said now elder when you give your comming home talk in your ward do not give a travel log. Bear your testimony and teach the gospel. Well I had had teach the gospel up the ying yang so when I gave my comming home talk in my home ward. Yup I gave my travel log "up yours stake president".
For some strange reason I was never invited to travel and speak with any high councilmen as a returned missionary.

Thank you all sooo much for sharing! It is so hard to imagine what serving a mission was like. Without question, it WAS a sacrifice!

Here is my perspective as best I remember. I was in Japan. We were not very effective as missionaries. It was really hard. The food was totally alien to me and took a long time to get used to, I never felt really full and actually lost quite a bit of weight even though I was skinny when I left. To answer your questions:
1. Most people would avoid us if they knew what we were all about. If we didn't talk religion it was fine. Most Japanese are agnostic and don't like organized religion. We would knock on doors and meet a lot of resistance. They would say "Kekko Desu" which basically means we are fine. The other thing was "Uchi wa Soka Gakkai desu" which meant that they were members of Buddhist sect already. I hated those guys, they were a bit militant IMHO.
2. There were very few members but we were liked by them. We were not allowed to eat with members. Our rules were super strict.
3. There was always pressure to baptize families. Hardly anyone ever did. The teenage girls were interested, however. I baptized a few people in my two years, most were younger. The pressure was also really big to sell books of Mormon (400 Yen). We were expected to sell a certain number per week and give a presentation but it was really hard to meet the mission goals.

The whole time I was there I resented the rigid schedule and wished I could just be a regular person and learn more about the country. It was frowned upon to do any sightseeing and the only time you had time to sightsee was to cram it into your P-day which ended at about 5:00pm and on that day you had to do laundry, go grocery shopping, write letters, etc. The missionary schedule ruined what could have been a wonderful experience.

I served in Canada Montreal Mission, and it was no picnic I can tell you! -40c in winter +40c in the summer with 100% humidity. 98% Catholic (prob 10% practising), and preety much nothing to do in some areas except tract, tract and tract some more! I vowed when i got home i would never knock on another door (i.e. on splits with missionaries), and i have stayed true to that!! It was so cold in the winter that often they wouldn't actually open the door and instead just wave you away at the window!
Don't get me wrong, I would be lying if I said I didn't have any positive experiences, because I learnt a lot about myself, and met some amazing people (although i also met some idiot companions too).
My mission had a president who was nice, but also ultra strict, so I remember constantly feeling guilty about the stupidest little rules i.e. SYL (speak your language 100% of the time with your companion). If I resent anything about my mission it was trying to be so obedient, but never feeling completely worthy no matter how hard i tried (sounds like a general feeling about the church!!), and i wish i had loosened up a little and had a bit more fun! The Elders who did this always seemed happier.
I sent a couple of cassette tapes home from my mission of me speaking to my family about my experiences, and boy do I sound miserable and depressed! I get embarrassed to listen to it now in front of anyone else.
Looking back now, it was a MAJOR sacrifice that i made to give up 2 years, and even now (10 years later) I find out things that happened in popular culture while i was away that i never knew about. I guess in some ways they were the lost years to me! Also like other people on other threads have said previously, I often get recurring dreams that I am back on my mission or embarking on a second mission! In my dream I always think 'not again' or 'I already did this once!' But when i was still TBM i remember thinking in my dream that if that's what the Lord wants, then I'll do it! Definitely not anymore. There is no way in hell I would go through that again!!
Finally, the first thing that my mother said when i told her i was leaving the church? Well that money we spent on your mission was a waste of time then wasn't it!! Even though I spent years in my youth working to help save up money for it too! What a great perspective from my mother huh!!?!!

...and I can assure you that, no matter what they say in public, the majority of missionaries spend a great deal of time counting the days till they can go home.

Much of the missionary work is dull. It is no more a "spiritual high" than any other part of life.

Of course, a missionary can have interesting experiences, and meet interesting people. It can be educational, if the missionary will let it be, as you experience the local area, visit other churches, do outside reading, etc. Many missionaries do, in fact, take this approach. Others are quite content to play around, in goof-off pursuits, rather than simply engage in mindless, boring, door to door tracting. A lot of time can be wasted playing around in member's homes, many of whom enjoy having the missionaries over for dinner, watching TV, snow-mobiling, etc.

Yes, the reality of a mission is far different than the idealistic picture which is often painted.

yes, the 4 mos. i was dealing w/them. Met 5 different ones. They were "always" upbeat and "Happy about serving God" and ALWAYS so concerned about the investigators well being and how they were. I just don't think anyone should go through that. Is that "brainwashing" from their superiors as well?

A new book about a missionary's experiences in Russia really rang true to me, except not nearly the baptisms in Finland in 1980-82. I just downloaded it on my Kindle for $5.00. It was a real enjoyable and easy read.

You mean to tell me that after a long day of tracting, witnessing, converting(or attempting) then you'd (as a missionary) have to call & give daily rpt. to your leaders? I knew they had to confer w/zl, dl,mp, etc. But daily????

Yeah it goes via the hierarchy: i.e. the minions on the bottom rung of the leadership ladder would call the DL, the DL would call the ZL, the ZL's would call the APES, and they would report to the MP that everyone was safe! If you didn't then your leaders would most likely assume something was wrong and come around to your apartment! I remember several times as a Zone-Leader having to wait up past bed-time for missionaries to call and check-in when they had missed busses etc, and stayed out later than normal! It used to really piss me off as sleep was very precious!! You wouldn't believe some off the stuff you have to do as missionaries!!

I just remember working my ass off and being totally exhausted towards the end of my mission. and for what? So I could baptize a bunch of Lamanites (Ooops, I mean hispanics) with a 10% retention rate ... and to collect celestial brownie points to "wipe away my sins".