Our mission motto was, “you break the mission rules at the loss of your own spirituality “. I broke a few rules, probably going out of my district to Oxford and saw the Moody Blues with my greenie, dang that was exciting times to loose my spirituality. I only wish I did more, There must be worse (better) rule breaking than this.

I had one companion that was a son of perdition. Super sleazy, very dishonest, but he could be very charming when he needed to be.

I was the uptight one. I regret that now. Being young, and being in a Latin American country, I could easily have had a girlfriend. This particular companion would have totally been down with an arrangement where we took a couple of days off each week and split up to spend time with our lady friends. Definitely a missed opportunity there.

On the other hand, stepping out with one of the young women from church would have been very hard to conceal and trying to find a local girl that had nothing to do with the church could have run the risk of getting kidnapped or shot. So maybe better that we stayed out of trouble. But damn, at no time in my life would it have been easier to get with the ladies. Wish I could have taken advantage of that.

Elder Bird would stop in to visit Strip joints. Oklahoma City in the mid 60's was an exciting place.

In our mission a lot broke the rules by going out of their area to visit Adam Ondi Ahman - and Adam's altars.

Then we had those who would go through the Brewery tours in St. Louis area and drink the beer that was served.

Central States Mission took in a lot of area then.

OKC in the 60's...wow. It was probably ok for Elder Bird to do that as long as he handed out BOM tracts to the ladies instead of dollar bills. I am entirely sure how that works, but a friend told me the gist. Anyway, when did you serve in the Central States Mission

I detested each and every thing about the mormon mission experience.

I made it a point to break each and every mission rule that I could possibly. **AND** I took pictures to record them all.

The following sentence is completely unbelievable - EXCEPT that I have photographic evidence.

**I went to a drag show at a bar on my mormon mission in Japan**.

I had sex with a companion.

I never stopped drinking coffee.

I bought a beer on my 21st.

We regularly left our areas, district, zone and even the entire mission.

we took nude pictures regularly.

I estimate I watched over 80 movies during my 2 year stint. We would go to the church on Sunday night and watch movies until dawn on Pday.

You poor dopes who just had to follow the rules had NO FUN.

Roughly when was that, Levi? I broke very few rules in my police state of a mission and have a hard time understanding how such disobedience would be possible. My father said that in his day the missionaries were largely left to themselves, but I never had that experience.

On the other hand, I did almost get excommunicated for apostasy. Does that count?

it was Japan, the Okayama mission from 1989-1991.

Wow. I would have guessed 1960s. I had no idea things were so wild in Japan so recently.

I'm glad you got some good things out of the experience.

well, thank you for calling that recent!

it was 30 years ago that I was there.

Holy Hanna & her sisters. 30 years.

the last 20 have been 100% out of the "church", so that's good. I was able to salvage the majority of my life.

Wow, can't imagine that some of those would be possible today.

There must've been more than a few gay relationships happening being assigned 24/7 male companions.

I posted a story a couple of threads ago about mission shenanigans. But I have fond memories of really taking advantage of "diversion day" (now called "preparation day"). We did all kinds of stuff as a district. We all lived under one roof, and on D-day we would, among other things, hike, go to local sites, go to movies, or just hang out in a local "bar" (essentially a bit like a pub, in that it's not a dark and gloomy American-style bar, but a lively place, often full of kids, where mostly they just drink coffee). And mostly, in the bar we would play American hits on the juke box. It was in a bar near our flat where I first heard "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR, and first heard "Cracklin' Rosie" by Neal Diamond. And the first time I heard about Woodstock was at a cinema where we saw a western, but got to see naked women and stuff in a documentary of Woodstock. Got our eyes full, we did. I also found out about Kent State when I bought the German magazine "Stern" where Kent State was the cover article. I missed so much. Sure wish today I hadn't gone. But my experience in Italian got me a great job in Rome 30 years later.

When I arrived in my Texas mission, they had just cleaned house! The mission president had been sent home; along with 60+ missionaries. There was plenty of evidence that the mission was out of control! Plenty of illegal baptizing, partying, and fornicating.

The unlucky ones who remained were probably the best darn liars the church ever had. Most of these guys were great because they had a sweet balance of doing some missionary work while having a grand time every day. We played some kind of sport every single day, save Sundays. In the mission, the biggest threat were "straight arrows" or obedient, mission rule loving missionaries. As new ones arrived each month, the dynamics of the mission were changing. Unfortunately, the mission president was getting better at brainwashing the greenies into becoming all-righteous super missionaries.

So my favorite missionary experience was playing a night time game (post 10 pm) of capture the flag. The entire zone was there, even the sisters. We played in the rain, got really wet and took turns diving into mud puddles. All of this occurred within feet of the Rio Grande and Mexico. And yes, US Border Patrol came by to keep an eye on us and our silliness.

We played everything that was forbidden by the white bible: tackle football, tag and wrestling. There were road trips as well.

And despite our perceived wickedness, the zone had regular baptisms. Zero correlation between missionary obedience and blessings of baptisms.

I was in Central States/Kansas Missouri 70-72.

I was mildly active when I decided to go on a mission to see if it was "true." This was early 80's when the practice was to send everybody who was willing to go and hope it sticks. Qualifications be damned! I was pretty gung-ho through the MTC, but ended up with a first companion who just wanted to be home and be with his girlfriend. We spent endless days at members houses just killing time. That crushed my enthusiasm and led me down the road of just getting through without getting sent home.

Luckily I was in the 18-month group and spent a lot of my days at gorgeous beaches, movie theaters, video game parlors, etc. We even spent some time at a local casino. I was ratted out several times, but had a really understanding mission president who valued me as a real person and not some robot that he could program.

I took guitar lessons from a very nice guy for several years in Junior High and High School and ended up playing in a cover band he organized from his students. He was an enormous Beatles fan and was missionary in Montreal. He managed to get tickets for the Beatles at Shea Stadium, so he ended up not only leaving his district but his mission country as well to see the Beatles (He said you couldn't hear a thing but girls screaming). He ended up being a stake high councilman, so I guess the Lord forgave him.

My mission had so many rules in addition to the whitehand book, that I broke many of them, not out of willing rebellion, just due to ineptitude, and had very little fun doing it.

The closest i came to doing anything sketchy was teaching a lesson to three college age girls who invited us in, and they were just wearing bras and panties. It was the 70s in Scandinavia. We saw these girls often on the bus after that, they were really friendly, it was nice to have young people who did not swear and throw things at us.