Posted by:
flash
(
)
Date: April 13, 2021 12:03PM
Today, April 13th, is the 42-year anniversary of the day I came home from my mission.
Every year I have celebrated April 13 as a personal holiday. A day that brought me so much happiness, I still cannot find the best words to describe those feelings of happiness and joy I felt knowing my mission prison sentence was done. I invite all of you to celebrate with me the day of my release from the hellhole of the old Virginia Roanoke Mission.
What say you my fellow RMs? What do you remember of the last day of your mission? Can you still remember the intensity of relief of knowing that your days of having to get up and go tracting again for the umpteenth time were done? Do you remember the relief of knowing that you could start being a real person again, have time alone again, be with your girlfriend again, listen to music of your choice again, eat good food again, and to be called by your first name again?
Help me celebrate this day by sharing your stories of your last day and how happy you felt knowing it was over. Many here would love to read your stories and I would love to read them too.
Below is the account of my last day. It’s a little long and some of you have seen this before. For those here who have not, enjoy. And enjoy the stories and comments that follow.
*********
At long last the happiest day I have ever known came. It was the last day I had to spend in the Virginia Roanoke Mission. That day was Friday, April 13, 1979 and in my life, it is a date that lives in infamy. My sentence in this mission gulag was finally over. Friday the 13th was a lucky day. I remember so clearly how that wonderful Friday the 13th started.
I woke up at the usual 6:30AM, had my shower, dressed, and sat down to a bowl of "Captain Crunch" while my companion showered. Sitting there alone, looking around, seeing my bags packed and lying on my bed, it finally hit me with full force that I would never have to sleep on that lumpy bed or wake up to another morning in this cockroach infested dump of an apartment again only to go mindlessly tract all day. With each spoonful of Captain Crunch, a mental list began forming in my mind of things I would never have to do again. The list included the following…
1. I would never have to go out and knock on another door and try to convince an already happy person, that they could become happier if they gave up 10% of their gross paycheck, sacrificed their weekends from being with their families to perform smothering religious duties from endless callings, alienate themselves from friends or extended family, so they can acquire the privilege of going to a building that looks like a bowling trophy, and dress up as the Pillsbury Dough Boy to pantomime disemboweling themselves. (Talk about a tough sell.)
2. I would never again have to ride a bicycle in a suite sweating like a pig in the Virginia summer heat and humidity or suffer frostbite out in the bone chilling Virginia winter weather. (I hate bicycles now and can’t bring myself to get on one again.)
3. I would never again have to eat endless starchy food because of no money to buy proper food. (Pasta dishes of any kind are no longer a block in my food pyramid.)
4. I would never again have to endure undeserved ridicule and condemnation from any general authority and especially from a pinhead GA-wannabe insurance salesman mission president named Frank A. Moscon. (I am so glad he is dead now and I could not be less sad. I hope his death was agonizingly slow accompanied with unbearable searing pain. One day, I will go and piss on his grave.)
5. I would never again find myself in an environment that produces loneliness and overwhelming suicidal depression. (so far I am batting 1000.)
6. I would never again spend another lonely Christmas away from my family. (I only worship Santa now with my family around me.)
7. I would never again be shackled to someone 24/7 that I do not want to be with. (no marriage could withstand this)
8. I would never again be deprived of the enjoyment of music. (I have music on most of the time and I have never played Mormon Tab songs again)
9. I would never again follow a set of idiotic and double-bind rules while trying to perform smothering life-sucking religious duties.
10. I would never again allow anyone to deprive me of the love, the touch, or affections of a woman.
11. I would never again respond to anyone calling me "Elder" or just my last name.
12. I would never again go tracting. (To this day, I don’t even like to knock on my neighbor’s door.)
13. I will never have to…
You can fill in the rest, my fellow RM's. You know that this list is almost endless.
Oh, what joy and happiness I felt as I thought about the things I would not have to do ever again. I sat there just relishing the thoughts of being home again, restarting my life again, being with Kathy again, being called by my first name again, and being able to be alone again. I was so happy and I poured myself another bowl of "Captain Crunch". I poured so fast that half of the cereal ended up on the table and the floor. Oh well, I might as well let the kitchen's cockroaches celebrate with me, as I kicked the cereal on the floor under the refrigerator. Throwing the empty bowl into the sink after I finished my 2nd helping, and as the bowl bounced around in the sink, I thought “…let the next sucker Elder clean it. I am outta here…".
This particular morning seemed so fresh and I felt so alive. I had not experienced such a wonderful morning for 2 years and I almost forgot what it was like to live again. There was a nice cool breeze and birds were singing. I still could not believe that my escape from the Virginia Roanoke Mission was beginning today. As I carried my 2 bags down to our car, I started singing to myself the song by "The Guess Who", "....No time left you…on my way to better things...I found myself some wings...."
I had to go to the mission home to get my plane tickets so we drove to the other Elders apartment to bring them with us to the bus terminal where I booked a seat on the local Greyhound mini-van bus to Roanoke.
MY LAST BUS RIDE IN VIRGINIA
Just before the bus was to leave, I said my goodbyes to my companion and the other 2 Elders in our district. They wished me well and then I got into the mini-van bus. I remember the looks of envy and jealousy on their faces. I knew they were wishing so hard to be in my place because their Friday would be another lonely day of mind-numbing tracting for weekly reports but not my Friday. I would never have to knock on another door or fill out a useless report again. I looked out the window at my fellow Elders for the last time, waved at them, turned away, and never looked back. A huge wave of relief rolled over me and I let out an audible sigh as the van started on its journey. My escape had begun.
The early morning ride to Roanoke would take about an hour. Passing through and out of the Martinsville/Collinsville area and on to the 220 highway, I mumbled to myself a quiet “good riddance” to that cesspool as I gazed on all the houses that I had knocked on fruitlessly for eight months. I also mumbled a “good riddance” to some particular members of the branch there that had caused me so much unnecessary pain. Never again would I have to see them or put up with their nonsense.
Once on the main highway, I spent the journey relaxing and just watching the countryside go by. For the first time in two years, I got to enjoy all of the green foliage of Virginia without that black cloud of dread hanging over me of having to start tracting in another city once the journey was through. Every transfer, I always dreaded starting over again with knocking on doors that Elders had knocked on before, only to be told to get lost. I also dreaded moving into yet another cockroach infested dump of a place.
This bus ride was special as this was my last bus ride in Virginia, and the beginning of a long journey that would end with me at home and free from this mission hellhole for good. I felt giddy inside. I felt like a little boy going to Disneyland for the first time.
I tried starting a light conversation with the driver to end the silence and this was proving difficult. The bus driver knew I was a Mormon missionary by the way I was dressed and the tell-tale nametag. At first, he was reluctant to talk with me probably for fear that I would start talking Mormonism to him. Sensing this, I told him that I was going home today and had no intention of discussing any aspect of religion or Mormonism. I said this as he watched me take off my name tag and put it in my pocket. I told him that he can call me by my first name and not Elder Flash. Hearing this he visibly relaxed and began to open up.
We ended up having a fun conversation all the way to Roanoke. We talked about his job and the unusual cargo he was carrying (10 gallons of horse cum) and about his poor experiences with other missionaries he had bussed around. He commented to me that I was not like any of the other Elders he met before. He said I was genuine in my demeanor and well-mannered and was glad I did not try to convert him. I told him that I was from California and was not one of the Utah “factory” Elders. That comment made him laugh. We finally rolled into the Roanoke bus station around 8:30AM. Waiting there was a couple of mission home “factory” Elders to drive me to the mission home.
IN THE BELLY OF THE MISSION BEAST FOR A BLESSED LAST TIME
My itinerary schedule indicated that my plane to Washington DC from Roanoke would leave at 11:30AM. The next day I would hop on another plane at Dulles International and fly to California. I had made previous arrangements for someone to pick me up and give me a condensed tour of the Washington DC area.
In order to create this itinerary, I made up a story to the mission home a month before saying that I wanted to go through the Washington DC temple before departing home and for them to create an itinerary for me to do this. Little did they know that my real goal was to only see the nation’s capital on the Church's dime since I was at this end of the U.S. anyway. Because I was able to fool them so successfully & easily, it proved to me once again, that the mission leadership had the inspiration and discernment of a fence post.
While I waited around in the mission home for my departure hour, I realized how nice it was to just sit knowing that I did not have to do any sort of missionary work. I did not have answer to anyone, not to a DL, or a ZL, or the AP office elders, and best of all, not to that pinhead mission president. I now only answered to me.
I found myself a nice La-Z-boy chair in the common area to pass the time until I had to depart for the Roanoke airport. I gazed out of the big picture windows at the woods nearby remembering how I looked at those same woods two years earlier wanting to run into them and escape. How fun it was to know that now I was escaping but I would be walking out the front door instead of running into those woods.
I began reading several magazines that were on the table next to me such as NewsWeek, Time, and National Geographic. I was two years behind on news and events and I found it so refreshing to read something other than some dumb-downed church publication or book. I was so fed up with church literature that I took two of the Ensign magazines lying on the end-table and just stuffed them into the depths of the La-Z-boy chair never to be seen again.
After about a half hour of reading and enjoying the view of the woods, I noticed that six new elders had arrived from an earlier flight fresh from the MTC. They were a mess. They looked so depressed, downcast, and sleep deprived. They reminded me of how depressed I felt when I first showed up at this miserable mission two years earlier.
Seeing them, I felt a wave of bitter sickly sorrow and pity wash over me knowing their hell holes were just beginning. However, those bitter feelings were washed away by a delightful tidal wave rush of knowing that I was finished and I WAS LEAVING IN JUST 20 MINUTES!! I had fewer minutes than they had months to endure this cesspool.
These new elders saw me reading "missionary-unapproved" material and one asked me, with a “holier-than-thou” Utah-twanged voice, why I was there by myself and not with my companion. I looked up and smiled and told him that my mission ended today and I was on my way home, and before tomorrow ends, I will be kissing my beautiful Asian girlfriend. And I asked him back, smiling smugly, “What will you be doing tomorrow?”
Hearing this, a few of them looked like they were going to breakdown on the spot judging from the glassy look of their eyes. Two of them looked at me with such jealousy it was palpable. It reminded me how jealous I felt when I first arrived two years previous and saw two sister missionaries who were about to depart for home.
If somehow, they could know of the bitter dregs of depression, loneliness, and isolated hellish living that awaited them for the next two years, I think they would have gone into the restroom and sliced their wrists. To think that they would have to put up with that pinhead President Moscon and his idiocy made me smile knowingly at them but I did not taunt them about going home. I had at least that much civility left in me after my two years of hell.
I politely brushed them off with a smile and went back to my reading. They went off somewhere else in the common area. I did notice that one lagged behind and was staring longingly at the woods outside the common room window. Maybe he wanted to escape into those woods like I did two years ago.
I rebuffed every prodding from the AP Elders to go and have the customary last interview with the mission president. Because of the falling out that I had with him 4 months before, nothing anyone said would change my mind about talking one last time with that bastard. Any communication with him had been fatally terminated four months prior, and while I was there in the mission home, I did not even acknowledge his presence.
His clueless wife, Loya, tried to goad me to talk with her MP husband but I was now immune to such tactics. Frank & Loya’s chance to be any kind of surrogate parents to me had long since passed. If I had parents like that, I would put myself up for adoption. Looking up from my NewsWeek magazine, I gave her a look that would have shriveled a rock, said nothing, and went back to my reading. She huffed off and was probably thinking "…how dare this lowly elder brush me off..." But I didn't care anymore what she or her pin-head husband thought. To me, they were now person’s non-grata. I just wanted out of there as soon as possible.
ONE LAST ROUND OF AP ARROGANCE
Time was getting close for me to be at the Roanoke airport so I asked one of the AP elders for my plane tickets. A convert family from my last area had come to drive me to the airport and see me off plus I no longer wanted to spend any more time in that mission home. Being there was serving no purpose and I would rather be elsewhere. Besides, I finished reading all their magazines. This Idaho-prick AP elder spouted off to me that only the mission president could give me my tickets (that he held in his hand) and that I did not have his or the MP's permission to leave the mission home yet.
Oh, so arrogant to the end, I thought. But I, being of much larger stature, pulled him aside into an empty hallway, and in a still small voice, told him that if he did not give me my plane tickets, this would be his last day as a fully functional human being and he would be harvesting potatoes from a wheelchair. I told him this as I was "helping" him tighten the knot of his tie by pulling it above his head. Needless to say, he loosened his grip on my tickets and I pulled them from his hand.
With plane tickets in hand, I grabbed my bags and walked out of that mission home with the family who came to see me off. We loaded my bags into the trunk of their car and, after taking one last picture with them, we drove away toward the Roanoke airport. At last I was finally done being a missionary. No more MP. No more double-bind rules to follow. No more minders to contend with be it a companion or Zone leaders or APs. No more carrying around scriptures all day.
As the Roanoke airport came into view, I reached over and quietly slipped my nametag into my coat pocket marking the end of the existence of Elder Flash.
THE FLIGHT OUT OF THE VIRGINIA ROANOKE HELLHOLE
At the airport drop-off curb, I gave hugs and said my goodbyes to the family that brought me there. After they left, I checked in my one large bag keeping with me my carry-on. The woman behind the counter called me by my first name. I didn’t respond at first as no one had called me by my first name for two years. I was shocked a little realizing I had a first name again. Funny how the little things you have been starved of for a long period of time are now such joys.
I collected my boarding pass, and walked to the gate area. Once there, reality really hit me that I was finally alone. Even with having the airport crowd around me I felt the thrill of being alone and separated from the mission collective. Looking around, no other Elder was in sight and I could do as I please without worrying about some judgmental prick of a missionary reminding me of the mission rules for this or that.
It may seem hard to imagine why being alone was such a glorious experience. But when you have someone around you 24/7 for two years watching where you are, who you talk to, what you are reading, what you say, what you eat, and what you are wearing, being able to be alone again and accountable to no one, is so refreshing and beyond my words to describe.
I always cherished my alone-time as I needed it to recharge myself. To have it stripped from me for two years proved to be very draining. Only Mormon missionaries or people in prison can understand the joy of just finally being alone.
While I waited for the boarding call, I decided I should purge myself of any Mormon missionary looks and accoutrements. I no longer wanted anyone to assume I was a Mormon missionary. So, I collected together my nametag, the missionary white handbook, and a big heavy envelope of mission reports I was given at the mission home. Looking around for the nearest trash bin, I saw one, walked over to it, and tossed it all in creating a big thud as it hit the bottom of the nearly empty bin.
Watching that crap disappear into that bin brought on another wave of relief. I stood there by the bin for a few moments letting it sink in that I was finally done with it all. No more reports to fill out. No more fantasy goals to record. I had no more tell-tale nametag, no more white handbook of smothering rules to follow, and no more of anything to remind me of being a missionary. The only papers I had left were my tickets.
To complete the purging of any missionary look, I went into the restroom and found an empty stall. Once inside, I removed my suite coat, vest, and tie and stuffed them into my carry-on bag. I then took out a nice blue colored dress shirt that I had been saving for over a year and changed shirts. I unwrapped the blue dress shirt and hung it on the door hook. Then I literally ripped off my old white shirt popping off most of the buttons in the process.
It felt so satisfying to rip off that old worn-out white shirt and to watch the dislodged buttons ricochet between the walls of the stall then to dance all over the floor. I considered flushing the white shirt down the toilet but refrained myself from such amusement so I just threw it into the restroom’s garbage bin. From that moment, April 13, 1979 at about 10:50AM, and to this day, I have never again worn a white shirt. Even today, the thought of putting on a white shirt disgusts me. I cannot even wear a white T-shirt.
With my non-missionary look, I found myself a seat and happily noticed that the people who I sat next to did not even notice or care who I was or look at me funny. I was just another fellow flyer. It was so liberating and refreshing to look and be a normal person again. I quietly celebrated my new transformation by imbibing in an "evil" can of Dr. Pepper I got from a vending machine and read an abandoned Sports Illustrated magazine I found on the seat next to me. Oh, that Dr. Pepper tasted so good and was so refreshing ice-cold, and as I read, I never found the phrase “And it came to pass” anywhere in that magazine. Life was getting better by the minute.
About 45 minutes later, the boarding call was announced. I made my way to the gate boarding area outside and to the stairs leading up to the Piedmont plane door, got onto the plane, and found my window seat. Soon everyone was boarded, the hatch was shut, and the plane began pulling away from the gate.
The flight attendants began scrambling to get everyone a drink of their choice. It seemed like it took forever for that plane to taxi down the runway to get ready to take off. As it did so, I mumbled to myself, "Oh please let there be no mechanical problems." I could not bear the prospect of returning to the gate. I wanted so badly to be as far away from Roanoke and that mission home as I could get.
When the plane roared down the runway, lifted off, and its wheels no longer touched Virginia soil, I felt this feeling inside like poison was draining out of my body. Two years of amassed missionary poison that had cankered my soul was draining away. The faster and higher the plane went, the faster the poison seemed to drain out of me. What a relief it was to be whisked away from that god-awful place.
As the plane continued climbing, I thought how for two miserable years I longed for this day to come. I had dreams of this day. I thought about leaving all the time and now I was flying away at last. To make sure I was not in some lucid dream, I pushed on the side of the plane and squeezed the armrest convincing myself that they were substantial objects. I was not dreaming. I was really on my way home. "It is really true?!!" I thought over and over again. Yes, it was all true. I almost cried.
From my window seat, I looked down at the shrinking Virginia countryside and thought about how two precious years of my young life were forfeited and wasted there. Two whole years, where instead, I could have been in college getting my electrical degree, enjoying time with Kathy, and just living happily. I thought about the missed Christmases, the missed birthdays, my brother's wedding I missed, and about the long separation from Kathy. Sitting on that airplane and trying to comprehend and sort through all my feelings of relief, joy, and happiness that I was on my way home, and that I did not have to do or think about missionary work ever again was beyond words.
The flight attendant came by and gave me my chosen complimentary can of Coke. As I sipped the blessedly caffeinated drink, I amused myself with the thought that, below my feet, some poor Elder was looking up at my plane wishing with all his heart to be where I sit as he tracted going door to door to door endlessly with each door being slammed in his face. I thought how I was mocking him by staring out the window so he could see that I was the one here and not him. I was the one soaring higher and higher and escaping the drudgery of a mission. I was the one flying away leaving only a contrail behind for him to see as he walked to the next door only to be told again to “F**K off and get lost!” I thought how his wishes were in vain because today was my day to taste freedom’s sweetness.
My thoughts then drifted back to the last time a flight attendant, out of pity, offered me a soda two years ago when I was so depressed and sobbing as I left California for that Salt Lake Mission home nightmare. Such a contrast, I thought.
THE WASHINGTON DC MINI-TOUR
In less than an hour my plane landed at National Airport in Washington DC and I found the person who I previously arranged to meet. My plane to California would leave Dullus International the next day so, according to our previous arrangements, he provided me a mini-tour of the Washington DC mall area. In his TR7, he drove me around showing me the White House, the Washington memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and other mall monuments.
He was very gracious and kind to me and treated me to McDonalds. We got along great and he said that he knew how I felt being released from the ‘mission prison system' as he called it. He also was an RM and he said he could see the relief all over my face. He told me he understood how I was feeling inside and related to me the day he came home from his mission. What he did not know is that privately, I was also reveling in the joy of knowing that I was successful in pulling the wool over the AP office Elders' & MP's eyes to set up my itinerary to allow for this mini-tour while they thought I wanted to go through the Washington DC temple. I got the last laugh on those clowns.
After the Washington DC Mall mini-tour, we got on the DC beltway to go to his place for the night. When the Washington DC temple came into view, I felt nothing inside seeing it. It had no significance to me as it was just another symbol of this ungrateful church. He asked if I wanted to see it up close but I politely said no. Puzzled by my reaction he passed by the exit and I did not give the place a second glance. Soon we arrived at his place where he let me use of one of the spare bedrooms of his luxury apartment.
That night I had a nice long hot shower where I scrubbed off two years of missionary dirt and disgust. I soaped myself up several times just to watch the water rinse the disgust away over and over again. I must have stayed in there for over an hour, but when I was done, I felt cleansed from the missionary gooey that symbolically had built up. I even shampooed my hair 3 times.
As I prepared for bed, I realized that I no longer had to pretend to say personal nightly prayers anymore so as to not raise suspicion in a companion that I had lost my testimony. I also realized that I no longer had any rigid schedule of sleep & wake up times with tracting to dread in the morning. I felt so free.
In bed, I laid there pondering over the day's experiences. What a day, I thought. I woke up in a hot & humid, cockroach infested dump for the last time, brushed off the MP and his clueless wife, threatened an AP Elder for my plane tickets, transformed from Elder Flash to Flash, flew away from the hellhole known as the Virginia Roanoke Mission, toured the Washington DC mall, and ended up in this nice place for the night.
His spare bedroom had a TV and a clock radio. That night was the first time in two years that I got to stay up late and watch “The Tonight Show” and then have a radio sing me to sleep. An air conditioner droned in the background keeping me cool all night as I slept. Gone forever was the nightly ritual of trying to find sleep in the silent & relentlessly hot and humid air of Virginia. “Life was so good now” I thought as I drifted off to sleep.
THE FLIGHT TO CALIFORNIA AND HOME
Early the next morning, I arose with great anticipation of being home at the end of the day. Again, there was no need for a phony morning personal prayer to attend to for a tattle-tale companion’s sake. And WHOOOOPEEEEEEEE!! No tracting to do! No life sucking missionary duties of any kind to do! My only focus was on getting home.
I dressed myself in "normal" clothes as I was not about to sit for 6+ hours dressed in a suite. I was driven to Dulles International to catch my flight to California. I thanked my friend and tour guide graciously at the drop off curb, checked in my bags, found my gate, and sat down to wait for the boarding call.
Again, it felt wonderful not wearing the telltale nametag or the clothes that screams Mormon Missionary; No suite, no vest, & no tie, just comfortable clothes. Nobody called me "Elder" or avoided sitting next to me. Nobody knew me and I saw no familiar faces. I was just another anonymous traveler and again it felt soooooooooo good to just be alone.
I got myself a Dr. Pepper and a newspaper, found an empty seat, and just sat and read the daily news. How refreshing it was to just sit and read the paper and not spend another morning reading the same boring scriptures over and over again. Drinking my Dr. Pepper lifted my already sky high spirits even more.
The boarding call was announced about an hour later and I made my way to the gate to board my plane to California. It was a large 4 engine jet TWA with relatively spacious economy class seating. Way better than the cramped Piedmont Airlines from Roanoke to Washington DC. I found my window seat and settled myself in for a nice long relaxing journey.
The plane was only 2/3 full so I had 2 empty seats next to me where I could stretch out my legs and sleep if I wanted to. I glanced over at the cabin door when they closed it and thought that when it opens again, I would be in California breathing the dry air of home and not the humid locker room stuffy air of the east.
The plane pulled away from the gate, slowly taxied to the end of the runway, straightened out, and then its four engines came to life. Faster & faster did we roll down the runway and near the very end the plane slowly lift off, folded its wheels up, and began the 6+ hours journey west toward California. “What a wonderful start to a day”, I thought.
I gazed at the countryside passing underneath the plane for hours while music flooded my brain from the in-flight music selections of "The Bee Gees" to "Bread". The soft music had a way of flowing throughout my brain and scrubbing away the two years of the missionary gooey that had gummed it up. I also watched two wonderful “evil” movies. How refreshing to watch a non-church movie. I was so fed up with church movies that if the airline had started playing “Mans Search for Happiness”, I know I would have gotten up and broken the projector.
The food served on the flight tasted great because it was so much better than the crap I had been eating for so long as a missionary. I finished both meals completely plus 4 cans of various sodas plus whatever cookies I could persuade the flight attendant to steal for me.
Oh, how happy I was and how relieved knowing I would be home by the end of the day. I made it a point to reassure myself again that I was really there. I pushed on the side of the plane and grabbed the seat armrests and again they were substantial objects. I was not in a dream that would end with an alarm clock waking me up in Martinsville, Virginia to go out tracting again. I shuddered from a cold chill and almost puked at that horrible thought as I was grabbing the armrests.
As the flight continued on, the plane eventually flew over Utah where I looked down at SLC. I briefly thought about that "Bad Boy's Reform School nightmare" week I spent in the Salt Lake Mission Home two years previous. During my mission is when the church started up the MTC with the domestic Elders spending one month there. How lucky I was to avoid that. I could not imagine spending a month in that nightmare. Once again, I amused myself with imagining that there was some MTC Elder out in the courtyard looking up at the contrail my plane was leaving behind and wishing they could be where I was. But it was not to be for him. Unless he had the courage to leave now, he had two hellhole years to go through wherever he would end up.
I also thought again of those poor new Elders back in Virginia just starting out. How was their 2nd day in the Virginia Roanoke Hell hole? What dark, unholy, and impure thoughts of “the Lord’s anointed” do they have now about their pinhead mission president?
For one last time, a wave of pity for them occupied my mind for about two seconds but those thoughts were washed away for good with a tsunami of happy thoughts of being home, where I would be loved and wanted, and being with the girl that I loved. Those poor new Elders and the hell of the Virginia Roanoke Mission felt so far away now and of no importance and the relentless roar of the jet engines seemed to magnify these feelings.
Later I looked out the window again and saw the Sierra Nevada Mountains where the California/Nevada state line is. The plane began to slow & descend. Oh God, is it really true? Am I really almost home? I can hear the wheel bay doors open. My home airport is in view now. I wondered how many people would be there to welcome me home. I hope Kathy was able to make it. We are closer to the ground now. THUMP…THUMP…THUMP! I am on my home soil again.
FINALLY HOME AGAIN
When I walked out of the jet way, all my family was there to meet me. I cried seeing them and hugged them more than I ever had done before. It was the first time I ever cried because I was happy. I could not believe I was with them again. The two year nightmare was over.
Kathy was also there to meet me. To see her standing there after two long years brought another rush of tears to my eyes. Was this real? Is it really her? How much more beautiful she was in person. Now twenty one, she was even more beautiful. I rushed over to her and we gave each other a very-very long hug and a deep kiss. I did not want to let go of her. I missed her so much. I kissed off (pun intended) the bullshit that I was still a missionary until being released by the Stake President. I was threw being a missionary the moment I left that goddamn mission home and nothing was going to keep me from Kathy any longer.
The hugs and kisses I received from Kathy, after missing her for two miserable lonely years, poured peace into my soul in such a way that I cannot find adequate words to do justice in describing how I felt. Only those who have gone through this can understand what I am talking about. The English language is just too inadequate to paint a proper frame of reference for someone who has not gone through the trauma of a Mormon mission and returned. For those who had the courage and emotional strength to not succumb to the social pressures to serve a mission; coming home was not like coming back from college or summer camp. It was like coming back from the dead.
No event in my life has ever produced such an intensity of relief and happiness as the day I came home from my mission. The joy in the relief of knowing I was done with it all almost overwhelmed me. That night, at home, after my family retired to bed, I sat on my bed and looked around my room marveling that I was there again. I then began to cry so hard that I had to bury my face into a pillow so no one would hear me.
My tears were of joy and anger mixed together. Tears of joy, because I was back home where I am wanted and valued and where I could restart my life again. Tears of anger, as I thought about the enormous amount of time wasted, the undeserved pain received from the mission president, the endless days of not being able to be with Kathy, the lost opportunities in my education path, and the time stolen from me from just living a normal happy life.
Before turning off the light, I checked just one last time that I was really there and not dreaming. Everything appeared real and solid. That night I slept for 14 hours and did not wake up until 1pm the next day. Happiness flooded my soul the next morning to find myself in my bed in my room at home. Yes! Yes! I was really home.
WHAT THIS MISSION EXPERIENCE DID TO ME
Allowing myself to be coerced into serving a mission turned out to be the most damning decision I had ever made. Looking back, I saw how serving a mission short-circuited my dreams and aspirations. I had lost two precious unrecoverable years of my youth being a door to door salesman for Joe Smith and now I was 21 and two years behind in my education.
I did not come home a "saturated sponge" dripping with spiritual knowledge and “wisdom beyond my years” for a dedicated life to the Mormon collective. Instead, I came home feeling like an old dried out chamois. I was fatally wounded spiritually and now the church was nothing more than a nuisance to me.
For those two years, I wilted in every area of my life.
I did not grow financially because I was not paid.
I did not grow socially because I was not allowed social interactions.
I did not grow academically because I just read the same four books.
I did not grow spiritually because of the emotional rape from being humiliated, ridiculed, and condemned constantly by the mission leadership, and in some cases by the local leadership, for trivial imperfections, phantom sins, or random bad luck.
The whole missionary experience left me extremely bitter, and convinced, that the Mormon Church is the only church on Earth that persecutes its own missionaries.
The Lord never answered my prayers. He never even provided a simple warm feeling to confirm that what I was doing was maybe true or worthwhile to salvage my daily dying faith. The mission home even stole my deposit claiming it for some phantom unpaid bill.
The Mormon Church has a love-hate relationship with its missionaries. They love them when they accept the call but beat the crap out of them mentally, emotionally, and physically for the two years they serve. And the leadership of the Mormon Church scratches its collective head wondering why 60% of returned missionaries go inactive after “the best two years of their lives”. Could the reasons be more obvious?
NO MORE GHOSTS IN VIRGINIA
For those of you living in Virginia who may think that I am trashing your home, I am not. Virginia is a very pretty place and, as they say, “Virginia is for Lovers”. I did go back to Virginia 15 years after my mission as part of a cross-country road trip with my wife.
What a wonderful feeling to be there as an Exmo and to be able to do the things I wanted to do that I could never do as a missionary because of having no time or money or freedom. When I went back, it was in the fall when all the leaves were turning color and my pretty Asian wife was in awe as she had never seen so many bright colors. For the first time, I was able to enjoy the beauty of autumn in Virginia and to do so with the one I loved.
Visiting one of the areas where I was a missionary, it felt strange to be in that area again. For a brief moment, I felt the depression and hopelessness feelings start to well up inside me of having to go tracting all day. It surprised me that those feelings could still rise up after so many years.
But when my wife put her arms around me, those depressing feelings were quickly crushed and swept away as reality came rushing back, and I knew that I did not have to go and start knocking on the doors of the surrounding houses to try and sell them Joe Smith. I could leave at any time. I could eat at any time. I was not confined to a certain area and I did not need the permission of some pinhead Zone Leader or Mission President to leave.
As my wife and I drove away, I felt forever free from the toxic religion of Mormonism. It was so satisfying being in those places as an exmo because I never felt more free of the Mormon Church, than being in a place where it had chained me so tightly.
A SAD NOTE TO MY STORY
My wife mentioned in my story, passed away in 2013 at the age of only 58 from a fatal heart attack. There were no warning signs, or symptoms; Just collapsed to the floor and passed away. In life, there are sometimes freight trains that come out of nowhere and smack us down.
Each night, I tell myself I guess I must be a strong person because I have gone one more day without her.