It's my final week in Provo. My family is down here for our reunion. Today my mom took me and my aunt on a tour to the MTC. She has a good friend, who works there, so we were so lucky to get a tour.

I didn't go on a mission, so it was my first time there. I even went voluntarily cause I was pretty curious.

Couple of observations....

Holy sh*t the place is so depressing. No windows, dark hallways, million small dark rooms.

The new buildings are actually pretty nice.

None of the mish boys looked happy. Zero. I couldn't figure out what was on their mind. Something in between being depressed and homesick. The sisters looked like their fake smile is hurting their faces.

Our tour guide approached three missionaries. And asked them some questions. Then my mom asked them how they liked the food. They gave her some arrogant answer. My aunt asked one of the Elders (model, athlete type) a question and he answered to her like it was embarrassing to talk to someone like my aunt (she's pretty obese, but who effing cares). So I just thought good luck in Guatemala and living in a poor country and speaking to poor people.

The best part was when one of them asked me if I served a mission.

Elder:"Sister, did you serve a mission."
Me: "No." (but really thingking heeeellll nooo)
*silence*
Elder:"...which is okay."


He interpreted my silence as being sad about it. But I'm super glad I got an approval from someone, who just graduated HS. I know he already feels superior to me with his priesthood and shit.

I left thinking that I really admire anyone, who's able to get through the entire MTC experience. I haven't been to church the whole summer and I really forgot about the fake smiles and oversized suites men wear.

In the car my mom and aunt said: "What a great tour. You saw how happy they looked?"

:D

The tour sounds like many of the tours of North Korea.

Prepared, escorted, concocted conversations with captive people umder duress.

The beginning of the Mission Mind F___.

I'll never forget how I felt the second I set foot in the MTC...I've never felt such an overwhelming sense of dread in my entire life. I chose to go on a mission - no one forced me to, but I had no idea how horrible it was going to be. I could tell from the first second in that dreadful place that I had gotten myself into something awful and it was too late to turn back. Sitting in those stifling classrooms for hours and hours every day, trying to cram German into my brain and sitting through boring as hell lessons was almost too much to bear. At least back then - 1980s, we were allowed to take the bus to the mall on P Day, and also allowed to hike in the mountains behind the MTC. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there though.

I don't know how I survived my mission. It was the mental equivalent of being locked in a shipping crate for 1.5 years: my brain felt like it was trapped in a box with no escape - LDS Inc. controlled my thoughts.

When I was locked up in the MTC, it was still called the LTM or Language Training Mission. The first step after waving goodbye to your parents was to get an official haircut. This was the seventies and I had already had my beautiful long freaky hair cut off when I started the mission passport pictures etc. and I was told I could wander around for an hour or so while the rest of elders in my group got officially shorn. In the hallway I met one of my best friends from high school, he was pretty smart and we took many math classes together. He was standing in a doorway wearing sound damping earphones banging his head against the wall and trying to pronounce japanese dipthongs. He looked like one of those pitiful monkeys in a zoo that destroy themselves from stress induced grooming. He told me he had only made a 0+ on the language test and was not even at survival level japanese and was shipping out in a few days. Things went downhill from there. We had an elder in my bedroom ( there were 8 of us) go over the hill, but they caught him trying to hitchike back to California. His parents talked Max Pinegar to reassigning him to Hawaii.

Ooops I forgot the rest of the story. Elder Headbanger joined the Navy after Mission to get his education paid for and ended up working for the NSA doing electronic spy work in the middle east. He is out of the church, divorced his first TBM spouse, married a very cute nevermo girl from our high school. All three of his daughters have nothing to do with the church.

Hedning Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>and I had already had my beautiful long
> freaky hair cut off when I started the mission
> passport pictures etc. and I was told I could
> wander around for an hour or so while the rest of
> elders in my group got officially shorn.

My older sister own a salon. She went through beauty school or hair-cutting school or whatever it was when she was in high school, then studied business at BYU. She worked at the freaking Wilkinson Center Paul Mitchell Salon, where, at the time, the women's stylists were expected to be able to provide the traditional male cuts as well due to high demand from the MTC. I had her give me the standard missionary cut the day before I left for my mission so that I could save the $.

The @hole MTC mission president forced me to pay one of my sister's co-workers the $16.00 or whatever it cost (I'm sure it's much more now) to comb through my hair, look at it, and conclude, "It's regulation length right now. I'm not supposed to cut it any shorter." She didn't give me my money back, though. What it amounted to for me was a hair tax.

I told the mission pres that the lady barber charged me but didn't cut anything off. "Mission rules, elder. You have to learn to follow the mission rules, " was all he said.

I should have taken my cue from that and should have known it wouldn't go well. Had I not stuck it out, I probably never would have become so proficient in Spanish, though, which has been of almost immeasurable value for practicing medicine in California. I try to look at it that way, plus I picked up some carpentry skills, as opposed to having thrown away two years of my life.

OPPOSITE day is EVERYDAY in tscc-world. The MTC is where you get chopped down (with a dull axe), only to be rebuilt (improperly and unnaturally) from the OUTSIDE in, and act and think and believe "truth" comes from without, and to hide one's beauty and intelligence and creativity within. It's a military-technical-center - MTC - of gleaming (looking) "perfection", readiness, and robotic precision - and in this case anyway, ignorance (and emptiness) - so you can fool at least yourself, and hopefully con'verts.

It is all about getting the female prize at the end.

I like to be reminded of the MTC = Empty Sea

oregon Wrote:
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> I like to be reminded of the MTC = Empty Sea


That's hilarious. Love that.

Write families kids. How are you liking the empty sea? (Can you swim)? Oh yea, it's empty.

I had just noted the emptyness. I just had yet to sea.

M@t

moremany Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> oregon Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I like to be reminded of the MTC = Empty Sea
>
>
> That's hilarious. Love that.
>
> Write families kids. How are you liking the empty
> sea? (Can you swim)? Oh yea, it's empty.
>

Of course, on missions they aren't allowed to go in any *actual* sea, right? ;-)

Nor swimming, boating, any bodies of water besides the bathtub kind, and baptismal fonts.

Ha that's what my friends and I all called it while a the Y and somehow it always sounded so appropriate.. just a sea of young people empty of all pleasure and intelligence and hope..

Yep ding ding ding

There's a box at the bottom of every prize.

I know a guy who went in to the MTC and was out in three weeks. Apparently he couldn't handle it. A few years later he had little problem handling Air Force boot camp and over 20 years in the service.

Oh wow, I hadn't thought about that place for many, many years. I was there this day 39 years ago, half way through. It was the LTM then, though I think the name changed just weeks after I left. I just allowed a few minutes to dredge up memories of the place. What a horrible waste of my young life.

In fact, our being bilingual was one of the first things we learned that we had in common. Second language for both of us. I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, and majored in it at university. Somewhere in there, I spent a summer in Guadalajara (MX) as an exchange student. To this day, I am told, I still have a Jaliscan accent when I'm using Spanish.

DH learned his Spanish in the LTM, preparing for a mission in Guatemala. We both used Spanish in our professional careers. We still sometimes speak it to each other.

Being bilingual here in New Mexico is very handy. Our younger son learned Spanish for a Spanish-speaking Stateside mission. They were going to send him somewhere in Central America - I forget where - but it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how we would keep him supplied with whatever he used to take for ADHD. At that stage of his life, he would not have been able to keep his mind on anything for long, and a mission would have been impossible.

That medication was completely illegal in the country he would be assigned to. All of this was on his application, mind you, but somehow, somebody was dis-inspired on his case.

I called the MTC after researching the issue thoroughly, and explained, frantically, that he could not be sent to Central America. The lady I spoke with was VERY nice, and very helpful. She helped set things in motion to get our boy re-assigned to a stateside mission, and helped us to contact a doctor within the stateside mission area who was willing to monitor the medication and coordinate prescription with his doctor here at home. Our son eventually outgrew the need for medication, but it wasn't until well after he had finished the mission and come home. And HIS Spanish was dazzling!

Probably ate in the same cafeteria and ran laps in the same gym with the big Swedish weight lifter drill master.

Same dude. God. The horror of it all.

I saw it once too and thats all ill.say you know the rest.

BYU Professor Daniel Peterson is unhappy with this post. He comments:

"I read a hilarious entry on an apostate (and mostly atheist) message board this evening. It seems that some poor ex-Mormon toured the new buildings at the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC) with his parents a day or two ago. He was appalled by what he described as the glum and depressed looks of the missionaries there, and by what he characterized as their arrogant demeanor. There’s no arguing such perceptions. I’ve also taken the tour, though, and I saw no such things.

However, this person also called attention to the dark hallways and the dark, windowless classrooms of the MTC. But, on this, point no reasonable person could possibly agree. I mean, really. Check out any photograph of the new MTC buildings. (Look at this article from back in early June, for example.) They’re virtually nothing but windows."

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2017/08/44026.html

good catch

I was amused by Peterson's hilarious entry and mormon dog whistle with his subtle equating apostasy with Atheism.

His message to mormons is that if you leave mormonism you will get the double whammy of apostasy AND Atheism. Fear works wonders.

And when is Peterson going to thank us for giving him his talking points.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2017 12:11PM by Dave the Atheist.

Daniel! Welcome to the board. So nice to know that we are providing you with another perspective.

Oh my lol. I was obviously talking about the old building. Typical. I even admitted the new buildings were nice.

Maybe Daniel is a "drive-by" reader. He didn't read for comprehension, he just skimmed your post. I read that on the first read ie, that the newer bldgs are nicer.

What you described sounded a lot like a submarine looks like on the inside (no windows, dark rooms etc.) My that would be depressing.

And likewise Daniel also missed that you are not a "he." (And he calls himself a 'professor?' Of what I wonder, besides BS.)

;-)

POSTER: "Holy sh*t the place is so depressing. No windows, dark hallways, million small dark rooms. The new buildings are actually pretty nice."

DANIEL: "Hmmm, how can I twist a factual observation so it appears POSTER is lying? You know what, I'll just leave off the second part of the observation."

Trollin trollin trollin
Get them tapirs rollin
Cyberspace we're scrollin
Rawhide!

Duh, the original post did say the new buildings were much better.
What a douche. And calling our serious sharing 'hilarious'.. oh isn't he just so much better than all of us poor apostate atheists. Of course HE would fail to see the despair and fake forced smiles since he is too brainwashed to pay attention to reality. Much like the original post's mother and aunt who thought everyone looked so happy. The cult members see what they want to see. My parents certainly saw what they wanted to in me when I was a teen in their household.. could never tell when I was super depressed and struggling. They just ignored anything they didn't want to have to deal with.

Despite the fact that the OP said the new building was quite nice, may I add that the outside of the building I am in right now (where I work) is almost all windows, we certainly have some dark hallways and windowless offices. I'm sitting in one even as we speak. I'm not special enough to get one of the offices with outside windows. We could have a blizzard in August and I'd never know until I go out to my car. Yes, it's depressing at times.

No Windows?

That wouldn't get past the building/fire codes here, because of lack of egress means...

What did the OP mean by this?

When I said windowless...obviously there are some windows. We toured S1 building -admin building. We walked through long dark hallways and many of the rooms didn't have any windows.

goldrose wrote: "and he answered to her like it was embarrassing to talk to someone like my aunt (she's pretty obese, but who effing cares)"

I know you're not claiming to absolutely know the missionary's true thoughts or feelings as he spoke to your aunt, but I just wanted to note that outward mannerisms and expressions are ambiguous. The missionary may not have been feeling anything at all related to your aunt's habitus. He may have truly been embarrassed due to shyness, etc, despite his own apparent attractiveness. He may have been a very humble person, who simply has difficulty interacting with others in some contexts. My wife has this difficulty. She is the most caring person I know, but she is exceedingly shy. Her manner is often interpreted as arrogance or being stuck-up, when her feelings are the complete opposite.

I think a lot has to do with how the current generation grew up and the influence of "smart" phones. It seems that teenagers don't know how to have conversations with adults or even their own peers. They text rather than talk and are loosing their communication skills. Whenever I go to a restaurant for a meal I'm saddened by families ignoring each other and staring at their phones. People are loosing their ability to connect. They're also spending too much time photographing every little thing, not enjoying the moment but trying to save it for later, and posting on social media to show off and get "likes" and comments to validate the experience. And yes, in this selfie obsessed world where women aspire to be like the Kartrashians and looks are important for all the social media posts, some people truly don't like to talk to people who don't fit their ideal of attractiveness.

And now for a dig against LDS Inc. They get themselves in trouble by proclaiming that theirs is the ONLY true church, only THEY have the power of the priesthood and are the ONLY ones with the GIFT of the holy ghost. When they make these claims a lot is expected from the members. So when missionaries of the ONLY true church can't be friendly to plus sized women, they're obviously not as righteous as they claim to be.

Done with rant!

Totally agree with Texasmo on the smart phone addiction issues in the youth. But also in adults now as well. People who were previously able to make eye contact and carry on conversations without constant digital distractions are now completely handicapped by this new technology.

I can be very shy as well and have had issues with social anxiety but the use of smart phones has become a crutch for other such individuals and I find I do much better not using those devices (I actually had to quit due to health problems I had from them, so I am not 3 years without a cell phone of any kind and life has never been better!).

It wasn't that long ago that it was considered very rude to check your cell phone while conversing with someone else, esp. at a dinner table! But now it's the opposite, it's like I am the rude one for interrupting THEM when they want to stop talking or looking at me in order to check their phones. It's like a 'human right' all of the sudden. Yet for me it's worse than smoking in someone's face (at least that's how I feel as I have physical reactions much like a second hand smoker when I have to get around that wireless crap), and I am just waiting for the day, like I had to decades ago when it came to banning smoking in public buildings, when they ban cell phones from public places both for health and as a courtesy to others.

Anyway I digress.. I do think that is a factor though with current young people, for sure, being raised with this social media crap and texting. Very stunting of emotional growth. But I also relate to having been mistaken as being a snob when I was just shy.

they should rename the MTC "BYU-Potemkin".

MTC? My Torture of Choice

I went through the LTM during the 70's. I found it bland and depressing. I should have gotten out of there and gone home, but nooooooo.

Sounds like you saw what you wanted to see. We're all ex Mormons and have no love for the church, but your observations seem readily biased.

It was a dreary place. I felt that I had been abandoned and cut off by my family. I clearly remember the night before being "dropped off" by my parents. I was extremely depressed (though I didn't readily relate to my fear, panic and anxiety.) I had zero interest in doing anything the night before. I even lost my robust appetite. I felt a humongous doomsday clock that was ticking away. I really wanted my father to lose control of his emotions and not make that fateful turn into the MTC parking lot. My father loved me a lot and wanted me around the house, but he didn't dare question my mother's superior spirituality. My mother, on the other hand, really wanted a missionary son for bragging rights at church as if the old biddies of RS would really care or be impressed. There was no turning back even if I would have begged them to drive me back home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2017 01:19AM by messygoop.

I got a tour of the MTC years ago, too.
A three-month tour.

It was...pathetic.

Horrible food, lacking taste and loaded with carbs to pack the weight on before they shipped half of the ignorant kids out to countries where they'd have little to eat or get parasites.

The shared "tree" showers were an experience I didn't even have in gym class in high school. Nothing more spiritually uplifting than to take a shower surrounded by five elders with their junk hanging out, farting when they bent over to pick up the dropped soap.

So much fake "spirituality" -- that I clearly recognized and was disgusted by even as a believer. Everybody pretending to be more holy and obedient than the next guy/girl. Nobody admitting that I heard them spanking the monkey in the dorm last night (this was a nightly occurrence). Nobody saying out loud how lonely, homesick, disgusted, afraid, uncertain they were -- because you had to show commitment and surety of purpose no matter what you actually felt.

Kids who had no business learning any foreign language being in the foreign language missions, not making any progress whatsoever, and continually being told that if they weren't getting it they just weren't being obedient enough or didn't have enough faith. When the simple fact was they had zero language aptitude (they weren't "stupid," they just weren't the type who learned languages well!). Inspired callings my ass. Some of the ones in my group (learning French) spent two years in-country and never got beyond the simplest of conversations. And they felt shamed the entire time when they shouldn't have been sent there in the first place.

The one and only bright spot: one of my instructors. Gary James Bergera, who went on to do some critical writing about the church in Sunstone and other places. We all knew he was gay, but at least in my case I didn't care (he came out much much later). He was funny, energetic, knew the language, and was empathetic about what we were going through. None of that was the case with most of the other shoulder-to-the-wheel peter priesthood types teaching there. Who were generally jerks.

There are few places in the world I would be happy to see burn down, never to be rebuilt...but the MTC is one of them.

Damn! I had forgotten about those universal shower trees. Those were horrible and humiliating. If I remember correctly, anyone that was standing at the sink to shave, wash his face or brush his teeth (with a full wall mirror to boot!) could check out everybody's junk.

And I remember that the bathroom stall toilets (with wall dividers) had no doors too! I remember being afraid to use them because you would be looking at someone standing in front of a mirror looking back at you. Even at 2am, there were people coming and going. There was no privacy and the church was happy that they felt so clever to design them that way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2017 12:18PM by messygoop.

You sum the place up accurately to my memory. The compound should be razed, salted and covered with nuclear waste.

I had forgotten about the language ability differences. We all had to take some kind of foreign language aptitude test after filling out papers to go, but who knows why. Half the dudes in my "field of service" were just like you described. Surely they did not do well on the test.

My mission had an "out" for the truly incapable and those who despised the country, people and language: US military bases. Those districts accommodated 10% of our elders. Occasionally prez-wanker would "challenge" one of them to go back German. I was assigned one of those. It opened my eyes or rather ears. I'd been out 4 months, he 20. His ability was like two months in a high school class. I had to take charge of everything though he was DL. He lasted 6 weeks before demanding to go Ami again.

Inspired callings. Gift of tongues. SNORT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2017 07:07PM by Void K. Packer.

Hie wrote=
"Kids who had no business learning any foreign language being in the foreign language missions, not making any progress whatsoever, and continually being told that if they weren't getting it they just weren't being obedient enough or didn't have enough faith. When the simple fact was they had zero language aptitude (they weren't "stupid," they just weren't the type who learned languages well!)"

Well put. I wanted to say just that but didn't know how to phrase it but you totally nailed it.

I figured out pretty quickly just how 'inspired' the callings were. For example, one brother was studying french at the Y and was doing really well and was sent to France and spoke French like a native. Another was studying Japanese and doing well with it and sent to Japan. So I thought, well that makes sense then, why wouldn't they want to take advantage of them already have learned the language?

But my BF, who did NOT have an aptitude for language at all, BUT who was part Korean, well he got sent on a stateside Korean language mission, not knowing a word of Korean and having had no foreign language training whatsoever before his stint at the 'Empty Sea'.. and I knew he wasn't someone who'd be able to learn languages easily at all. So of course the language training was just hell for him and he was also a pretty new convert. So the whole thing was just an ordeal that he was trying to endure in order to marry me after he returned. (luckily that did not happen, he was abusive with me, though I still feel sorry for what he went through at the MTC).. He learned a early on, I think in the MTC even, that it was a numbers game, the whole mission deal. And so he didn't last long in the field and didn't finish the mission, but did marry someone else in the temple. (Ironically I had left the cult by then and after his temple marriage didn't work out he ultimately left as well)..

One thing nobody's mentioned. Anyone remember the gym class?

While exercising, we had to shout out the names of all the General Authorities, IN ORDER, complete with middle initial. Every time, just so we knew who our masters were.

Leader worship, anyone? That alone screams "cult." Of course, I didn't make that connection at the time.

OMG Gym class! The sisters only time to work out was at 6 AM so I had to wake up at 5:45 AM if I wanted to get my only exercise of the day. It was torture dragging myself out of bed so early but I was terrified of getting fat so I did it. Our instructor was a total nazi. She had been in the military, I think, and she was really a witch. She'd yell at us if we didn't follow the rules exactly. I'm starting to remember too much of that horrible experience - I can almost smell the cafeteria food and feel the prison like atmosphere of the MTC. I could have been happy at home with my nevermo boyfriend, going to a normal (not BYU) university and enjoying my young life.

No way! That's crazy!!!

The LTM room my "district" essentially lived in for 8 weeks was a corner space. There was one window which was tall and narrow. I suppose in case of fire we could've broken it and gotten out, but I don't remember a fire escape ladder next to it, and it was on the third floor.

This thread has brought up long suppressed memories. In retrospect what most disturbs be about that building were the testing rooms. The classrooms were around the perimeter of the floor. The testing rooms in the center. They had huge see-through mirrors and listening equipment which invisible observers could make use of in an adjacent dark room. God only knows why they thought those were needed for language assessment.