When I was on my mission in Virginia in the late 70’s, the endless drudgery of knocking on doors all day just drove me into the ground. Every day I just wanted to leave and would think about how I could go about escaping from that mission.

I would ponder so many ways to just leave like sneaking away from my companion at night while he slept or when he was in the shower, riding my bicycle to the nearest train station or bus station or airport to get some transport out of there. I even tried to work out how far I could ride my bicycle in a day to calculate how long it would take to get to California. How desperate is that? I never could find the courage to go through with it.

My fellow RMs, did any of you find the courage to do so or know of other Elders or Sisters that were able to escape? If so, how did you or they do it? Were you successful in getting away? How great was the deception involved to pull it off?

Inquiring minds want to know. In fact, your stories may inspire some Elders or Sisters who secretly lurk here to escape now.

They had a truck in their area, in Canada. He slipped out one night and drove a couple hundred miles to the border. He left the truck there and hitched a ride to the nearest bus station. It was back in the day when we got our money straight from home. He had cashed his check the day before, so he had enough for a bus to his home in CA.

contractor.. why not go home?

His parents said they would dis-own him if he came home early. He stayed the remaining 18 months working on the east coast. He was from SLC.

and quit his mission to play semi-professional football in the NFL's Europen League with hteir team in Dresden,Germany.He stayed in Germany for seven years after quitting his mission in Dresden.He said it was incredibly tense during the wo weeks. He felt obligated to give them two weeks notice because he saw it more as an employer/employee relationship and he was leaving to accept new employment. He said that the church actually flew Uchdorf out to Germany to talk him into staying. He left anyways but always made sure the elders had good seats at the games.

My brother left to go to the MTC last wednesday. I tried to talk him out of it and for a while he said he wasn't going to go.. I knew he didn't want to. Everyone who he is close to and "trusts" were telling him it was something he'd always regret not doing and all that. He caved about a month later and now there he is. I told him all he had to do was say the word and I will send him a plane ticket. What can you do to make sure if someone you love wants out he will admit it and leave?

Be frank and honest about what is going on.
Ask a lot of questions about specific things.
Make sure you remind him that you love him.
Make sure you remind him that you are always willing to bring him home at any time.

Remind him that he is an ADULT VOLUNTEER. Both those words are important.

As an ADULT he is legally responsible for his own decisions. He is responsible for taking care of himself by eating right and staying out of situation which may put his life or health in danger. If he doesn't get the support he needs from "the church" or his mission president then he needs to take matters into his own hands to protect himself or LEAVE.

As a VOLUNTEER he is there serving of his own free will. He is not a slave or indentured servant. He doesn't have to work 16 hours a day in 120 degree heat because the mission president says so. If he wants to take a day off, it is his right to take it. If they are asking him to do things that are unreasonable then he can say NO.

I think this is an important point, to remind future missionaries that they are in control of their choices. And that they can be very resourceful if they want something badly enough.

I wonder... coming from an abusive home, I probably would have saved a little nest egg escape fund if I were going. I could totally see just dropping off the mission and not bothering to go home. Pick a place and start a new life. Hell, that's what I did after college at 21. But I was wondering... do they inspect your stuff when you go to the MTC? Are you required to hand over whatever money you show up with? Couldn't you have $100 stashed up your butt or something, so if it got intense, you could find an escape hatch?

I suppose most of these kids are too inexperienced and naive to realize that they are in charge of their own shackles.

Mnemonic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Remind him that he is an ADULT VOLUNTEER. Both
> those words are important.
>
> As an ADULT he is legally responsible for his own
> decisions. He is responsible for taking care of
> himself by eating right and staying out of
> situation which may put his life or health in
> danger. If he doesn't get the support he needs
> from "the church" or his mission president then he
> needs to take matters into his own hands to
> protect himself or LEAVE.
>
> As a VOLUNTEER he is there serving of his own free
> will. He is not a slave or indentured servant.
> He doesn't have to work 16 hours a day in 120
> degree heat because the mission president says so.
> If he wants to take a day off, it is his right to
> take it. If they are asking him to do things that
> are unreasonable then he can say NO.


Exactly. You are volunteering and paying your own money to be there. Legally you could call the authorities and say the church is harassing you. It's all peer and family pressure. Legally, the church does not own you. They are just betting they can use the social pressure to make you do what they want.

To be warned, a few swears.


I have 2 stories relating to this, one more personal and the other inspiring and a little sad all at once.

A few months into my mission I had entirely lost my faith, but decided that I should trudge along for the family's sake. So as you can deduce, I was miserable. My sister, an atheist, sent me a cell phone so I could call home on mothers day (we were allowed to use the mission cell phones we had, but the pres was tracking the length of time we were on them. The Lard had revealed to him that "no longer than 40 minutes" was the limit). My wonderful sister also preloaded about 16 tracks of my favorite music into the phone's memory, and so at night i'd sneak out and go running to Muse, Arcade Fire, and Radiohead.
That was my "escape", until the APs did an impromptu search of everyone's apartments and found my phone and KEPT it. That angered me but thats a story for another time.

The other, better more relevant, story happened over the last two days of my mission. I had severely destroyed my knee during a P-day basketball game (ACL, cartilage, and 1 LCL) and the mission doctor mandated surgery, which I needed to go home for (the closest thing I ever had to an actual blessing).
I stayed the last 2 days at the mission home, where we were sworn to secrecy about what we were doing. Apparently the ZL of the President's (who was an insane bastard) zone had gone missing. This was a big deal because the guy was on his last transfer. After about 3 hours of investigation with the APs and office elders we found that he had prearranged a ticket home with a local, and convinced his companion to nap instead of eating lunch that day (common practice in the mission, given the militant nature of the President). While they were sleeping he packed a small bag, left all his mission clothes, nametag, and scriptures on his dresser and met up with his ride and flew home. I spent the majority of my final day listening to the Pres play phone tag with his family.

I felt both exhilarated and sad at once. The guy had more than he could take, and even though he lived in Utah he must have realized even 6 more weeks of this nonsense was too much. He was a "good" missionary who apparently baptized a ton of people, so this was a MASSIVE shock to everyone. The poor guy must have been treated like the fictional Korihor when he got home, so for that I am sad. But it was wonderful in the respect that he managed to seize his destiny in the face of the Theocracy. I found it extremely inspiring, and when I went home I put it in my arsenal of tools to permanently deprogram myself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2010 10:47PM by archaicoctober.

Anyone know roughly what percent leaves early?

((My mission was pretty good I guess. If I'd been in a city tracking all day it would have been ugly. Walking around the beautiful Navajo reservation, only managing to contact a few people a day was a great waste of time that I enjoyed for the most part. In fact I am still here....))

My Dh went to the Navajo reservation on his mission from 70-72. He loved the people. After we married he took me to the reservation so I could meet some special friends. What an eye opener.

In my 1st area, the ZL told us about an elder who wanted to go home. He packed his stuff, borrowed a bike from the landlord and rode downtown to the bus station. He took a bus to the capital city (24 hour bus ride) and then went to the airport and tried to get a flight home.

There was only 1 problem. His passport was locked in the MP's safe at the mission home. The airport guys called the MP to see if it was okay to let this guy board the plane and the MP said no and sent the APs to drag him back. They talked him into staying in the mission and he finished his time.

It was a great story and I would've thought it might've been made up. Except that in my next city, it turned out that we ate lunch at the house where this elder used to rent a room. The homeowner told us the whole story, just like we heard it from the ZL. He was the guy who lent the elder a bike.

I asked to go home - told my MP I was done. But he talked me into transferring to a stateside mission to finish out. I did that. I still sort of wish I'd just come home early. My family was all nevermo so they'd have been glad to see me.

PS to Flash - were you in Richmond by any chance? There were a bunch of us there that converted and were baptized in the late 70s. Just wondering if I knew you or if you knew any of this group. We knew quite a few of the mishes back then.

Duffy, I was in the Richmond area only once at the start of my mission. Our place, south of Richmond, was near the junction of Wamsley Blvd. and BroadRock Blvd. I was there from May through August of 1977.

It was the hottest summer I ever remember.

I heard about this after I left the mission field (Switzerland, Geneva Mission). There were elders who got stamps in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Austria - the five countries bordering our mission which included the eastern portion of France and the French side of Switzerland.

As for me, my MTC companion and I snuck out of the MTC early one Sunday with our pillows and bedding. We slept on the grass outside of the Provo Temple to watch the sun rise. Once it did, we squealed and ran back to the MTC. Didn't get caught; just got a bunch of stares from a few people as we walked back in.

In the mission field, a companion regularly needed her alone-time so I would wake up to an empty apartment on a regular basis. It scared me that she did this, but I understood her desire to be by herself. She'd always bring back a baguette and treats to share. Plus, she'd be in a better mood. I don't know why they didn't allow us necessary time alone like this.

Also, I was able to see my German grandmother before she died. By myself. All the way up to Germany and back for four days. I slept almost the entire time I was away and was able to say goodbye to her.

I felt sorry for a companion who swam competitively. We lived on the French Riviera in Toulon and she was constantly asking if we could go to the beach to swim. I wanted to go too.

Too much togetherness, not enough alone time and definite crazy mind-warping stuff we taught and learned and THANK GOD I'M OUT.

Why did you squeal?

who had "read her way out of the Church". She managed to de-Mormanize her husband, daughter, and even her son by long distance. She and her husband had quite an adventure flying out to bring their son home from his mission. She gave a talk at the 2007 Exmo conference, which you might be able to find online.

I remember that! It was "surf mom", right? I might have the name wrong, but I remember her daughter posting for her while she was picking up her missionary. What a great story, and I always wonder how the family is doing.

I had no problem sticking around my mission, I would have liked to go wandering a bit but that just never happened. I hated the fact that the MP locked up our passports in the mission safe. They fed us all the BS about it being best, so we didn't lose them etc. It never sat that well for me. Some volunteer organization! I understand the Churches need to cover its ass from any potential litigation, so it was always about control end exploitation. Was then and is now. I wonder if I could have petitioned the US consulate for a new one.... but I am sure that would have been intercepted by some dutiful Mormon state dept. worker. Thinking back to this time I start feeling the creeping feeling of being trapped, I have been trapped my whole life rarely ever free. Just to have a free moment where you are only responsible to yourself and your own aims. There is that brief window in your early 20's and I was robbed of that by an LDS mission and too early marriage.

I love freedom in every way. Knowing my passport was locked up and I couldn't get away would be a suffocating feeling.

Yes, you could have petitioned for a new one and got one. That's what they are there to do. In the worst case scenario, the local consulate doesn't do this (more on that at the bottom), but they will help you through the process of getting to the closest consulate that does this.

Anyone/everyone going abroad, for leisure travel or work, or any other reason, should photocopy their passport (not all the stamp pages, just the ID part and the declaration page, and the visa page if they are there on a visa), and keep the photocopy in a location separate from where you keep your passport. This will expedite the process, which might otherwise be time consuming. Anyone who has missionary relatives who are sent abroad should advise them to do this as well, "just in case something happens" (like wanting to leave :p).

I used to work as a locally engaged employee for a foreign overseas mission, at one of their consulates in the US. While we were the lead consulate in our district, we did not process passport replacements, etc. While our office did have a section that dealt with that nation's citizens in distress while in our region, the vice consulate in a different city (four hours away, but the state's main tourist attraction was in this city so I guess it made sense) dealt with lost/replacement passports, in fact that's all they did. HOWEVER, if people had a real emergency and time issues, and came to our office with photocopies of their passport, we could expedite things and typically could get the stuff to the other office and get it back in time to help them. If they didn't have any paperwork, we couldn't help at all, we just didn't have the system.

Now, this is how a foreign diplomatic office works over here, but I expect there is no difference to how a US office works overseas.

this is going back a few decades, my family pressured me into it, my mission was in a english speaking country, 7 months in, i abandoned my mission while my companion slept, i had my getaway planned for about 3 weeks, i had no real plan after that, i had savings and found cheap abode in a seedy part of the city ,i would take the bus to the beach and hang out all day enjoying my "vacation" a few weeks later i met a girl and long story short, 4 months later my family visits me and can see i'm no longer the same person i was a year ago, it was more or less accept me for who i am, or you don't have any future relationship with me, my [now] wife or any children we may have. a year after that we were back home and it was a little rocky but everything now is just fine

These are all great stories. Boggs, yours has the makings of a good novel or movie. You should write a story about that someday.
As much as I hated my mission, I never dreamed of going home. I just stuck it out.

I agree with Misfit. These are all great stories and we all would like the more detailed versions of the escapes. It would make a good book indeed.

It would not surprize me to find out that the church might have created a "Retreiving Old Missionaries Commitee" where they go out and find missionaries that left their missions early and drag them out of their homes, back to the MTC, and then return them back to their old missions to finish them out. What a nightmare story and movie that would make.

I'm like Clonerhead. I had no problems sticking it out. I actually liked my mission. Some went home, mostly because of health problems, but most of those were transferred to a state-side mission where a GA was Prez.

Ron

We had a missionary back in the late 90's that escaped. We too had our passports locked up, but this kid ran to the embassy and told them he didnt have his passport and that he needed to get home. When they asked him where his passport was he told them it was locked up in the mission office. Needless to say he got home, and the church got a spanking from the embassy for holding passports. Next zone conference the MP had to ask each one of us if we wanted to hold our passport (and risk it getting stolen!!) or if we wanted it held at the mission office (safe and secure). about 30% of us including myself decided to hold onto our passports.
On a side note, I never escaped from my mission, but after 6 months of hard work I was DONE!! (long story) I had a good 15 month or so vacation.

Can we hear that long story???

In the area that I live in now, a missionary started having an affair with a member lady that was making dinner for the Elders on a regular basis.

She left her husband and kids and ran away to a hotel with the missionary for a long time. Don't know what the end of the story was, but I'll bet mom and dad hearing that he ran off with a married lady and can't be found was not the funnest call for the MP.

Many decades ago on my mission, the MP asked me if I wanted to "be advanced" into leadership...I declined, which surprised the hell out of him, until I explained why.... I hated all of his leaders.

From that point on, he kept assigning me companions who had already mentally left the mission. We would work when we wanted to, and played the rest of the time. While the MP knew this, I think that he figured that it was still better to have us out there than for us to all escape back to the States.

On the other hand, it really pissed off his leaders that my companions and I would baptise more than their morgbots... who knows why....?? One of the leaders even told me that if we worked all of the time instead of playing part of the time, we would baptise even more... I disagreed with him.

The reason you baptized more people was probably exactly because of the playing around, and the freedom to not have to hide your mental state from your companion and the MP. You two were more human and not so programmed. People probably had an easier time relating to you and weren't as skeptical of you two than they would be of the highly programmed morgbots.

I never went on a mission, but I do hold a valid passport. This may very from country to country but is probably similar.

"This passport is the property of the Government of Canada. It must not be altered. You must take every precaution to safeguard it." Page 1 Canada Passport

"If your passport is surrendered to any person or agency outside the Canadian government (eg to obtain a visa) and is not promptly returned, report the facts to one of the above officers." Page 4 Canada Passport

No one has the right to hold your passport for you. It is for you and you alone.

mick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I never went on a mission, but I do hold a valid
> passport. This may very from country to country
> but is probably similar.
>
> "This passport is the property of the Government
> of Canada. It must not be altered. You must take
> every precaution to safeguard it." Page 1 Canada
> Passport
>
> "If your passport is surrendered to any person or
> agency outside the Canadian government (eg to
> obtain a visa) and is not promptly returned,
> report the facts to one of the above officers."
> Page 4 Canada Passport
>
> No one has the right to hold your passport for
> you. It is for you and you alone.


I surrender my passport to nobody. Period. I would have had a big problem in an overseas mission. Going on a mission to begin with was a HUGE mistake. I consider it the biggest mistake I ever made and I certainly wasn't brainwashed enough to turn my passport over to the mission president. I only made it through a year of mission before it was lose my sanity or leave. To be honest, my family and ward were a lot nicer to me about it than I thought.

I had a couple of escapes planned. We had a stop over in Seattle when leaving the MTC (on my way to S.Korea). My exmo brother lived in Seattle and was going to meet me at the airport to see me off. During the flight to Seattle from SLC I made the decision to ask my brother to take me to his house. Unfortunately my brother wasn't able to make it so that plan failed. I then considered just leaving the airport but I had about $20 on me and no luggage. Ultimately I just lacked the courage to do it.

My first area in Korea was very close to the airport and watching the planes fly over everyday was like torture. I would look up at them and wish I could magically put myself on one of them. My next plan was to leave in the middle of the night and take a cab to the airport. I then tried to figure out how I could get the money for a flight and that sidelined that plan. They then asked for our passports and that put another hurdle into the plan. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't fantasize about an escape.

A year into my mission, in 1982, they changed missions from 2 years to 1 1/2 years. With suddenly only 6 months left I decided to just stick it out and put the escape plans away. Knowing what I know now, I would have just flipped everybody off in the MTC and walked out the door.

served in Conventry Mission (I served in London). He and his comp lived in an apartment above a story. Well the store keeper's daughter was pretty, and she caught his eye. He wasn't liken' his mission much but he caught a glimpse of the store keepers daughter AND well he began to like his mission again. He proposed to her while his companion was napping. They decided to get married the next day at the local justice of the peace, again while the comp slept during lunch. He was released immediately BUT NOT excommunicated. His TBM parents were furious, and finally flew out to get him in the weeks that followed.

Thats one way to leave you mission - just get married.

I was in Japan so it was pretty much impossible to come home without going through the MP. Hence, I didn't even consider it as a possibility. And the humiliation factor from family and friends would have been too much.

But there was a guy in our mish who disappeared for awhile. Apparently he snuck away at night and hooked up with some Japanese girl and stayed with her family for a few days. Eventually they found him and sent him home.

A kid in our stake literally jumped the MTC fence on his first night.

He has some separation anxiety issues, which were way worse than anyone realized.

I was in New York City and while my companion was doing his laundry, I said I was going to go get more soap and hailed a taxi cab and went to the airport. I had my own credit card and could buy a ticket back home. I still remember the price. $230 on American Airlines.

I went when I was 21, nearly 22, as I waited until after I was finished with my BS. I was supposed to be in the MTC for 9 weeks to learn Spanish, then ship off to Texas. Going through the temple really opened my eyes, as did the control structure in the MTC. As the weeks went by, I wanted to be there less and less, and my doubts about the church grew and grew. It took a serious emotional toll on me. By the sixth week I ended up going to the counseling office for treatment for depression, and after talking to me and my parents, they arranged for me to be sent home on a medical release. I tried hard to continue to believe, but by about 2 months after I left the MTC, I quit going to church altogether, and haven't been back since (in fact I had my records removed in 2007). After I got myself together emotionally, I started an internship, went to grad school, did some traveling, and started a career. While leaving was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, it was also probably the best.

Holy crap Mathematica, that story sounds almost exactly like mine.

I entered the MTC @ 19, and the temple experience beforehand really opened my mind up. All throughout it I was thinking "What in the world IS this?!"

I also was supposed to be in the MTC for 9 weeks learning spanish before getting sent off to McAllen, Texas.

About 5 weeks in I got sent to the counseling office for depression, called up parents, and I was given a medical release.

Now it's about 4 months later and I've also stopped believing entirely. Crazy how similar our stories are...