In light of the recent ease of the missionary communications ban, I thought that some of you would be interested in how the church could have changed the boring role as a full time missionary. We were never told that we were part of a church pilot program and I didn't connect the dots until I compared missionary experiences with others in my home ward and stake.

The missionary experience was to defined by three parts; although not equally. The first part is what most people already know which is to find and baptize converts. This was to done with a minimum 36 hours a week. The time part sounds easy, but you need a good 4 days to do that. Sundays and your p-day didn't count. What made this a bit more unique was the emphasis of Jesus Christ (placing pictures of Christ and Holy Bibles). You also had to get ward members involved during the teaching of the discussions. That was very hard to do. Real people had to go to work! It took a lot of coordination and the alignment of constellations to make it happen.

Now here's where my mission diverged from the norm. We had to work with less active members for 12 hours a week. 6 hours had to be with ward and stake missionaries trying to *locate* members that were on the rolls but MIA. Because I was in areas of so many inactives, we had a mission form to REMOVE their names if they were no longer interested in the church. I found this part of being a missionary to be the most difficult. I lacked the will to really work with other missionaries' golden converts that had stopped attending. I felt poorly prepared and trained to tell people to come back to unfriendly or hostile wards.

The final role was to be part of the community and donate time for service. (I know that some missions already do this) We had to put in 12 hours a week (and prove it with written documentation). That meant spending 3 mornings a week doing something fun!

What the hell happened?

My mission president grew tired of waiting for the promise of mega baptisms on this new approach. After a year in the mission field, the hours of service were scaled back to 6 then to 4 hours. The plan to reactivate also was dropped. My mission went from "Defenders of Truth to Defenders of Mormonism". The push for old Joe was back on and his gold plates story wasn't working again.

My point is that there was a lot to do during my year and the time went by quickly. It became less pleasant and more unbearable as I neared the end.

At least your mission had structure so the time passed quickly.

In my mission in Europe during the 80s we were instructed to fill our time with finding/teaching investigators, which meant tracting, street contacting, etc. Ninety percent of my mission was tracting. We were not allowed to participate in community service - that was considered a waste of time. It was better to knock on doors from 9 AM to 9 PM without even talking to anyone. The endless tracting made the mission time drag slower than anything I have ever experienced - even having my teeth drilled at the dentist office.

The longest month of my life was spent tracting during the month of July when everyone was on vacation. We knocked on doors all day long without anyone even opening the door. It was hot and humid and we walked from one door to another from 9 AM to 9 PM. I think we had one appointment that entire month. What a colossal waste of time.

I'm glad I wasn't required to contact inactives and inform them that their names would be removed if they failed to attend church. That seems so mean and cruel. It also would have cut the membership numbers at least in half since most of the members where I "served" were inactive.

I'm so sorry that you had to endure knocking doors for 2 years. I probably would have resorted to sight-seeing for half of the time. A bunch of us learned the undeniable truth that there seemed to be ZERO correlation between righteousness and obedience and success of selling the church and baptizing people.

I think Ballard and Packer evaluated the structured pilot program and squashed it. I think they were assigned to the missionary program at the time.

messygoop

Yes talk about hostile wards,yes no kidding.I was in one.Actually that was the main reason i left the church.Its tiring to go a place where people seems to be angry or hateful and the missionaries keep telling you to church for god.You have missionaries come and reach out but the branch or ward is hostile people will of course be wary,besides aren't they thought to forgive and be loving.Once i realized they are not practicing what they preach.It was just sad you know and I spent all the time there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2019 06:36PM by johnhope.