Posted by:
Elder Berry
(
)
Date: June 04, 2018 06:10PM
I don't remember the poster but they replied to my post about my daughter leaving with some great information to give to her which I incorporated into a letter to her I'm giving her before she leaves.
Here is the letter. Thanks to the poster again for this great stuff.
You know I love and support you. Please try to understand why I'm writing this to you. When I went, I was clueless. My parents were more than happy to throw me into their church's missionary machine and wash their hands of me except to write a check. I was told that if I came home early no matter the reason that I was not welcome in their home anymore. It is a hard reality, but I knew I was an adult albeit a very unprepared one.
As an adult, I made the choice to go on a mission to escape a reality I didn't enjoy at home thinking being somewhere else for two years would help me resign myself to my lot in life. I had gone back to parents who had kicked me out of their house. I know I’m responsible for the choices I made, and I know you know you are responsible for the choices you make regardless of who influenced you to make the choice to go on a mission and regardless of what type of persuasion was used. But given my perspective, I was coerced, and they used the indoctrination they used on me my whole life. You can ignore the fact that you were influenced by a whole network of people who make a mission some sort of preeminent rite of passage for their culture and society, but it wasn’t a decision you made on your own. You can’t deny the influence of others.
I can explain to you what I’m driving at with an example. Say you choose to discuss your spiritual life with someone who has ulterior motives, regardless of whether the discussion was supposedly in confidence, you can reasonably expect that someone to use that information to influence you, manipulate you, and coerce you. Our greater society makes personal information, and other things more private than they should be in my opinion. It is because we use this information against each other. Information becomes more valuable the more personal and exploitable. We are all human beings socially designed to help each other but also to exploit each other and often we do that with “higher” purposes. Knowledge is power. The more someone knows about your desires, the more power they have over you. LDS culture invariably comes with forms of coercion. And a mission is where it gets really bad. People will notice your desires to be a good missionary and will try to control you using those desires against you.
You are a VOLUNTEER. As such, you are in a superior position. The LDS church is asking you for your help. If you chose to extend your kindness to the church by VOLUNTEERING, the church needs to understand its position as the recipient of charity. If any mission president, stake president, bishop or other so-called leader makes demands of you, remind him that beggars can't be choosers and he is in no position to demand anything of you, AN ADULT VOLUNTEER.
You are an adult, you are a volunteer, there is no binding contract. You can be a missionary on Sunday and a tourist the rest of the week if you so choose. You don't need their permission to be a missionary. You can go knock doors anywhere you want at any time without anyone's permission, blessing, calling, or setting apart. You don't need anyone's permission to be a tourist at any time. You can tour anywhere you choose at any time. It's your belief system that both limits and empowers you.
They cannot 'send' you home. They can only coerce you into agreeing to go home. You have your own passport and visa and I can send you money. You have the option of telling the mission president you will go home on your schedule, not his. If he has trouble understanding that, I'm certain the local police will help him understand the you are a FREE ADULT, not an indentured servant in a foreign country working for their passage back home.
Have a telephone calling card, and a photocopy of your passport with you. That's what any rational adult would do. DO NOT TELL ANYONE about them. They are your ticket out. Keep your options open.
Take care of yourself. Make sure you get enough sleep. Make sure you eat right. Make sure you are safe. Make sure you are healthy. Make sure you keep private matters private. That all sounds obvious. What isn't obvious to some missionaries is that obeying rules does not relieve one from natural consequences. If people around you are not allowing you to take care of yourself, they are not your friends. Simply tell them that you are not available for whatever it is they want you to do. If they as why, simply say you don't care to discuss that. Do not present your reasons for debate. You are an ADULT. You do not have to defend your reasons for your decisions. You do have to live in the environment you create with your decisions.
One more thing. You know that story about putting fleas in a jar with the lid on and after a while they'll only jump high enough to not hit the lid? When you take the lid off and the fleas won't jump out of the jar.
As long as you think of yourself as anything other than an INDEPENDENT ADULT, you will never jump out of the jar.
I am here to help you in anything I can do. I met some of the most selfish and vindictive people I’ve ever met in my life on my mission. I watched a system of sycophants promote these terrible people into positions of power over me. I did what I wanted to a degree, but I was terrified about being sent home and having to beg someone to let me live with them, so I could get on my feet and not live on the street.
This is something I never want you to feel. You know I would fly down there and pick you up. You know I’m terrified about what could happen to you. I haven’t been able to hang out with you for a couple of years and I’ve been jealous of your grandparents. But you still have me. I’m still here. The chorus of Mormons is all around you singing their same tired hymns but I’m in the back dancing to my own tunes and excited to see you when I can.
Know I love you and I’m the support system for you that I never had when you are out there lonely and depressed because that will happen. I think any missionary who denies that they ever felt lonely and depressed is a liar. But I will be here thinking of you and writing you and probably swearing for the censor’s sake.