Which would you prefer?

For me, it’s not a fair question because I had a great mission, which I enjoyed completely.

I spent one night in a county lock up, getting to eat French toast with a big spoon the next morning. Altogether an experience I do not intend to repeat.

In both cases, you have an embarrassing two year gap in employment to explain.

Mission.

For all its faults, on a mission you have greater freedom of movement, social interaction and under the new rules, weekly calls home.

Plus if you get a like minded companion, you can go totally off grid.

At least a mission is something I coulda been sent home from...prison? Doubt I'd survive that.

I would definitely choose a mission.

Definitely the mission. I would just not take it seriously and enjoy the history of the country where I ‘served’. And St. Kathrines street... would have tried to spend some time there...Damnit! Missed opportunity.

I’d bargain for House Arrest.

Kinda like the last 15 months here for me, Kathleen.

House arrest I could handle, Covid has trained me.

Mission. They're the one's that are doing the fucking to others. In prison, they would be the Fuckee's

Where I was it would be pretty much the same thing

I have never even been LDS and I know I would rather be a mishie.

I did 98 days in county.

I don’t honestly know, if the conditions were the same and I was unable to leave my mission, and there’s every chance a foreign country could be as dangerous as a state prison.

Mission

Just glad that I didn't have a GPS tracking my movements.

Had a cool companion who who wanted to follow an irrigation ditch one afternoon. We ended up outside of our area, but had a cool ride.

Two years in prison would entail an absolute restriction of one's personal freedoms. Obviously, there are different levels of prisons, along the lines of Martha Stewart's prison experience far being different from the run-of-the-mill prisoner, but overall, the restriction and confinement and lack of choices are overwhelming in American prisons.

Now, by comparison, the usual mission has its bounds and restrictions, but the missionaries do have relative freedom of movement, a great deal of choice in activities, and nowadays much looser restrictions when it comes to communications.

When I was a ward mission leader after my mission, I got to know several missionary companionships who were just basically average guys who goofed off a fair amount. They weren't particularly bright or exceptionally athletic, they were just nice average kids. They'd go out and sometimes knock doors and sometimes talk to people in the street, but none of that was hard pressed, and I suspect if they decided they were tired, bored, or whatever, they had freedom to goof off more.

My own mission I was bit more intense about, but there were plenty of times when we were laxer than I suspect the general authorities would have preferred. Even without overt rule-breaking, it's possible to bend one's mission to do the things you want to do - especially in places where the expectations for success aren't very great anyway.

So, yeah, either way, it's a wasted two years, but I suspect that the mission is overall the more edifying, less stultifying, freer of the two experiences.

Tyson



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2021 12:48PM by Tyson Dunn.

What an asinine question.
Gang rapes. Beatings. Killings. Conditions from hell and medical care even worse much of the time.

Missions have rules. Prisons have rules, bars, guards beating people, inmate rapes and more.

Is a mission ever a "choice?"

And the difference is...?

I liked the country I served in. I only drank half the kool-aid and didn't care much if we had a teaching pool full or not. I enjoyed conversing with the people and if they liked Jesus great if not I talked with them about other things. I had companions that also liked to be a tourist. It was great!

A mission. At least my experience...now, could be a toss up. I have the same recurring dream/nightmare that others have noted of getting a mission call all over again.

I didn't take things that seriously and learned Spanish; good for a really gringo-looking guy like me with a Spanish surname. Freaks a lot of folks out when I break out into Spanish. Then even more when I tell them my surname.

Opened a lot of doors for me (and lots of Latinas' undies).

(and lots of Latinas' undies).

Did you mean that to be funny?

Or were you just bragging?

I would choose mission, although at times I felt like I was in jail. So far I have no experience with a real jail or prison.

At least, technically, at a prison, you'd know why you were there.

You'd also be able to call home...

And have visitors...

Either way you wouldn't be free to come and go... and choose as you wish.

One is punishment. The other is restriction of freedom: freedom of thought and movement...

40 years of the self punishment of being Mormon was enough for me.

I became fluent in German on my mission, and some forty years later, I speak it better than ever. My mission led to my conversion to a better life outside of Mormonism, and the love of cultures and languages has led to basic fluency in Spanish.

A mission was my only choice, but I was lucky it led to so many wonderful discoveries about life.

For me it was perhaps sort of like the years Dostoevsky spent in exile in Siberia.

The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!

What a ridiculous question.

I was feeling pretty down that day. Of course, Mormonism is one big mental prison where you and the key are in the same cell.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormonism is one big mental prison where you and the key are in the same cell. >

... But you just don't know it (How about your cell [phone])?

You can learn various trades from the other prisoners…(maybe not quite legal, but at least you’ll have ‘skills’!)

Learning is legal, last I heard... but yeah, skills- pro'lly not.

I had an awesome mission.....at first. I spent almost 8 months opening up an area and by the time I left they were starting on a prefab Chapel. I was the first one in my MTC district to get a greenie who it turns out was gay and couldn't concentrate on his mission. (Months later he was sent home when he tried to jump his comp, who turns out was also gay (before and after his mission). As he was from a BIG Church family he controlled himself in the mission field.
Then I got sick and spent days in the hospital. From there I got sent back to open another area but mission politics and jealous APs got me "punished" to the "hellhole" of the mission. A stake with 25% activity and a companion who was nuts. I was told to babysit him as a junior companion until he went home. Two months later he was gone and I got another greenie and a promotion and we finally got things moving. We got our ward up to 60% activity and actually baptised people.
I got sick and the same jealous APs said I was faking it. I almost died and then a new MP came into the picture and came to interview us all. He said that I looked terrible. Again another trip to the hospital and almost died.
I ended up in the mission home (I was told it was a blessing and the Lord wanted me there) as an AP (I couldn't stand them) so I got to see everything that went on in the mission.
It sure opened my eyes. I was not political, I had so many friends brown nosing me to get "promoted" but I did my job and went home.
I never talked about the politics, the brown nosing, the jealousy. I remember my mission, and I'd probably repeat it vs. 2 years in prison. It was a good experience for the most part.
It opened my eyes.