Today I was talking about my mission with my mom, and needless to say it always makes me edgy. It brought up a night about 8 months in to my mission.

My comp at the time was a really by the book guy who even had rules on top of the rules. He was the senior.

We had been together almost three months and had been killing ourselves working harder than normal. He really wanted to baptize before he left the area. One of the ways that he felt we could make it happen was to fast every weekend, which we had been doing the whole time we were together. It really sucked! It was summer time and the heat was really bad. We were not in one of those areas that liked to feed us, which meant the food was kinda spares. The other thing was we were giving more of our personal time to work. YOU DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY PERSONAL TIME!

About three months into this we had both been sick for weeks and it was not getting any better. Unlike him I was older and was really starting to question what I was doing there. I always did my job like I was suppose to, but I did not have any feelings left. My family had all left the church by that point in my mission and a couple of deaths back home had shook me pretty good.

I was just amazed that god would not let up on me, or maybe I should say "Help ME!". Just alittle brake from the hell that I was going through would have been nice.

Anyway, back to the story, like I said we were really sick. We both looked like death and it was really pointless to nock on doors. No one is going to let a couple of sick looking guys in their house. finally I had had enough and told him I was going home to sleep. He didn't think that was very funny, and that was when I started back to the car. He was screaming at me to get back to work and that it was an order. I knew he would have to follow so I just kept going. When we got to the car he said I was wasting gods time and that we needed to get back to work. I told him to get in the car and drive because I was not nocking another door, and if he would not drive us home I was going to sleep in the ditch until it was time to go. I was laying in the ditch for about 15 minutes before he realized it was pointless.

We were home sometime after 7:00pm. He worked on call backs until 10:00pm while I read my BOM in bed until 10:30pm. I felt so guilty about my inability to keep going and feeling so worn out. The next day it was back to work like always. He even thanked me for making him rest, If you can call that much of a rest. To bad he made me fill like crap about it. I know it went into his weekly report to the MP.

He never got his baptism. I guess all that work was for nothing. Now I have to go swear for a couple of hours so I can fill good again, not about not baptizing, but about wasting so much time for a CULT! F%#@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brings back memories of my mission. The things we did because everyone else was coerced into doing it too. Or I should also say we were brainwashed into the mission thing since primary.

So when did you finally leave the church?

My very first companion had been out eight months. This was in Brazil. He was horribly depressed and extremely introverted, the type of person who does just fine behind a computer all day in a cubicle. Needless to say, when we went to call in our numbers for the week to the Zone Leader, my poor companion would get reamed up and down and then side ways, for not producing.

The tears would streamed down his face. I'm sure he felt like such a failure. I was a dick and a gung ho greenie, ready to baptize all of Tupa, Sao Paulo. I called the Mission office to complain about my companions laziness and lack of spirit. Gawd what a total A-hole I must have been. I want to look up this poor guy and tell him I am very, very, very sorry. They transferred him to the mission office. I hope his life turned out okay.

I detested missionary work. I mean loathed it. If I could come up with a reason to NOT work, boy howdy, I'd take it.

I had one comp that got tired of it and pushed and pushed to go "streeting". I said "Fine! But it is a waste of time - we've never had any luck before, don't know why today would be different". Out the door we marched and we walked up and down that farkakte street for 2 days from dawn till bedtime.

Didn't say a word to him. Not a single word.

He tried to talk to a few people and nobody wanted to hear from him.

I had made my point, but joke was on me. During that 2 day goose-stepping up and down Kurayoshi's main drag blew out my goddamned left knee and didn't do my right's any favors. They bother me to this day.

Well, I got home in 2002 and went inactive not long after. I didn't tell anyone that I had problems with the church for over two years. It has been a long ride. I don't think I will ever feel right.

They really screwed us up!

Oh M G!

yes. We are like almost the same age!

Rubbish what we go through out there!

I was always the comp that liked to have fun. Thankfully I was almost always the senior, except for the first two assholes. I enjoyed having a good time and generally screwing around. Granted, I was good at selling mormonism to people. Okay, I should clarify, I was really good at selling the gospel to women. It was my niche.

My mission was in France back in 79 to 81. I'm still embarrassed when I think about what an ass I was. I had a bit of an inferiority complex I guess you could call it, and needing to feel good about myself, I tried super hard to keep the rules, be an obedient little missionary, and kiss ass. Apparently I did a pretty good job of it, winding up as an assistant to the pres. Ha, now I feel like the joke was on me!

On the other hand, we all do the best we can with what we know and believe according the our world-view at any given time. I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves for trying to play the game the best we could. It was pure survival mode for many missionaries, myself included at times. I watched as many elders that I had started the mission with went home early for various reasons. Of 15 who left the MTC at about the same time, 8 never finished their missions. One was a friend of mine from my hometown. We went in to the MTC at the same time, and he only lasted 2 months in the field before he went home because he didn't have a "testimony". I felt so bad for him! Now I see that in some ways, he was way ahead of the curve, and one of the lucky ones who got out young.

I knew another missionary who locked himself in one of the rooms in the mission office and wouldn't come out. He got a medical discharge due to a psychotic break. Others were sent home early for un-confessed sins, or physical maladies. I knew of two, who were serving in a small out-of-the-way town, who just disappeared one day. They had taken a train to the nearest large town with an airport and flown home! How awesome is that!? All in all, as best I can recall, in my two years there we lost approximately 20 missionaries that went home early. There were many more who would've loved to go home, I know because as a leader I worked with many of them, and some were so depressed and down-hearted they could barely make themselves go out and work at all. And it's no wonder- it was a very difficult place to be a missionary. About the only people who would give us the time of day were poor immigrants, who probably were just looking for some validation and/or some financial help.

I'm sure these few examples of emotional, spiritual and physical suffering by Mormon missionaries is a tiny drop in the bucket of what happens all over the world every day and has been for many many years, and will continue into the future. The ripple effect of the scars of such abuse must be vast and unfathomable.

Missions are by and large a crazy-making venture, from the myriad rules, to being thrown together with a companion you don't know and often can't stand and who likewise can't stand you, to the door slamming rejection all day long, and the crappy food and living conditions, and the fighting for survival and to be picked for leadership positions, the culture shock, the mind-control, the lack of personal space or time, and I could go on and on. It's bat-shit crazy I say. I have two brothers with boys out on missions right now and I get the forwarded emails and I am appalled to think I used to talk like that. It's plain weird.

As far as I can tell, the purpose of missions is not only to bring more unsuspecting people into the Morg, but to solidify and strengthen the conditioning that the poor missionaries have already been subjected to all their lives.

I would love to see someone with some clout commission a study of the psychological damage the mission does to so many young men and women, and publish it in a major magazine, then get picked up by the mainstream news. No one knows the untold heartache and misery that flows from thousands of young people being culturally coerced into going on a full-time mission for the Mormon church. Of course, it's not all bad. But alot of it is. Alot.

Beatnik-
You are absolutely (half) right in thinking that the point of a mission is to further the conditioning of those already in the morg. I say half right, though, because I don't believe that anyone in SLC really thinks the other half of the point is to convert. I say this b/c mission stats are so terrible, and no one would consider the LDS mission model successful by any definition. Creating converts isn't really the point AT ALL. It's all about the life long conditioning of Mormons.

Think about it. The conditioning to be called on a mission (especially for boys) is 2nd only to that of getting married in the temple. And- for boys- going on a mission is a step on the ladder to going to the temple. And the road to a mission is almost as hard as the road to the temple.

First, they tell you all your life that it is the #1 thing to desire, and that it will blow your mind with how amazing it is. Second, you spend most of your life trying to be "worthy" enough to go on a mission or go to the temple. You give up a lot of things in order to do that, and by doing so, you increase your investment in the outcome, which enhances your desire to go and your desire for it to be amazing. That all feeds into the cog diss that causes many Mormons to convince themselves that they love their mission/temple experience- when really it was scary/creepy/terrible, etc. Plus, by making it such a spiritual experience, half the folks that go just play along and pretend to love it, rather than admit the Emperor has no clothes.

So, just like the the temple, a mission is just one part of the overall Mormon mind-f**k.

If they really wanted to focus on conversions, they would strengthen the church body to handle conversations about the gospel. As a Christian I lead many friends/youth group kids/etc to Christ. I didn't need to say, "Hey, let me hook you up with the missionaries..." So strengthen the members to give the discussions, or at least make that a calling in the local church, rather than through the mission org. Maybe it's something YM does. Maybe it's just a calling. Whatever. But the mission org as it is today is NOT necessary for converting people. Anyone that is TRULY interested in LDS will find their way to the website or a local meeting house. Door to door tactics have never been a great strategy for LDS. It's less about converting the masses than it is about containing the brethren.

I have lived in France (near Paris) since 1983 and one of the things I like about the French is their general lack of religion, plus the pervading idea here that, if you do have a religion, it's private and personal.

Having said that, I can only imagine how hard it must be for young men to serve a mission in my adopted country - hardly any French people will ever discuss religion, even if they already have one.

I am a nevermo but I feel for all you guys who had to go through this. As my co-workers on a tomato farm in the UK used to say in my youth when describing a pointless and tiresome task:

It's like pushing sh*t uphill !

As I've said many times, back in the day (in my case the 1960s) missionaries were sent money directly by parents and friends, took care of themselves, pooled money with companions and/or district members (depending on whether or not you lived in pairs or in districts), made their own transportation plans on receiving a transfer, and stayed the hell home when they were sick. I remember several cases where we took turns staying in with a sick missionary in excess of a week. In fact, it happened to me, too. You don't want to be out walking around when you have the runs or when you are dying with a head cold.

All the other control shit must have happened while I wasn't looking. I'm afraid to ask my son now what he went through.

And then whenever they are w/you, they seem as if it is what the WANT to be doing. During my investigation, I'd treat them as if they were human. Had compassion, etc. During my 4 months of inv., 2 of the four had a dad to serve and one of the had a sister to serve and the 4th had a brother just going into it as he was getting ready to go home. It can't be all roses. Can't be.

I think people who haven't been on a mormon mission in the past 20-30 years really don't understand the amount of control. They have it down to a science now. They tell you how to part your hair. They tell you what you should be feeling. They tell you what you should be thinking. Information outside approved channels is against the rules. Comps will tell any minor infraction to the MP. Worst two years of my life.

+1

I was reprimanded by my mission president for getting sick. I was rebuked for letting my hair grow out to 2 inches. I was punished for doing too many hours of community service and not enough tracting. For walking out during stake conference when the SP said he didn't trust the missionaries. For answering investigator's questions that weren't specifically related to the "Discussion." For taking off my tie when the weather reached 50°C. The list goes on.

We had DLs, ZLs, and APs show up on our doorstep unanounced to supervise our work. There were constant phone calls. They took away our car when we served out bush, because they were afraid that we would misuse it (this made it impossible for us to visit many of the towns that were in our area).

It was oppressive, and as much as I wanted to be obedient I wanted to make a real, positive difference more. I rebelled. I stopped following the rules, and by the end I just stopped trying to do anything. Their oppression created my rebellion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2011 04:18PM by homo sapiens maximus.