A lot of you know my story. Some ex mos even a lot on here say that they had positive experiences on their LDS missions.
I have to say from the short time that I did it (6 weeks in the MTC) I saw that all a mission is, is being controlled and indoctrinated by the church and having to pay to have it done to you. Anyone else disagree or have any opinions on it, I would be glad to listen.

I would never do it again. I hated being a religion salesperson, and of course I had to filter out all the people with African ancestry in Brazil when seeking “investigators”, a shameful task.

But being able to carry on a conversation in a foreign language fascinated me at the time, and still does. I grew up in a coal mining town, and basically all my friends’ grandparents, and often the parents, spoke English as a second language. My grandmother could get by in six different languages. I was pleased to become part of that club.

So, that was a positive. There are better ways to become bilingual, but honestly, had it not been for a mission, I never would have achieved even mediocre fluency in a foreign language, and if I did, it would not have been Portuguese.

The mission probably helped polish up some coping and social skills, but just two years of general normal living would have also done that. Other than a second language, and a few good stories to tell, can’t think of much unique that a mission provided.

I was a nonbeliever with 2 years after my mission, and a nonparticipant five years after the mission. I would have left earlier, but I was trapped at BYU (two degrees, long story)

Hello Bro of Jerry, served my mission in Sao Paulo, Brazil 91-93.

As far as the religion part goes, I really never got proper answers and I didn't like hiding facts to serve the milk b4 the meat. In fact, I came home with more questions of the church but I blame myself for not taking control over my life to find out the answers. Of course, today, with the internet, it is way more easy to get information.

I really enjoyed Brazil and Portuguese. It wasn't all perfect, I had assholes who hassled me on the streets, but for the most part, I enjoyed the conversations and the people who were nice. The one thing that was cool was all the chics whistling at me and flirting "flirt to convert" LOL it was great! So many cute Brazilian girls, geez! What I wouldn't give to relive those moments with my current knowledge.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> I would never do it again. I hated being a
> religion salesperson, and of course I had to
> filter out all the people with African ancestry in
> Brazil when seeking “investigators”, a
> shameful task.

Practically impossible in Brazil unless someone is the child of First Gen European immigrants.

Or Japan. Brazil has the highest population of Japanese immigrants outside of Japan. (I learned this in an article about (con)fusion sushi in brazil) They started settling in the early 1900s.

Yes, missions are -- for the most part -- horrible experiences. I did two years in Belgium and France just over 40 years ago, and I hated most of it: from the MTC, to being a greenie, to throughout my 24 months overall. I wanted to go home most of the time.

I, too, learned a foreign language well (French), which has helped me over the many years since at work and in other settings. The mission is a a really good environment to learn another language -- given the ongoing interaction with locals and partnering up with a more senior missionary (initially) who already speaks the language moderately well, usually, so the newbie isn't isolated and can listen and learn.

But was that benefit worth the mental health and other negative implications of a horrible two years -- not to mention the lost two years. I'm sure there are other immersion environments where one can learn a foreign language well, too

+1 on all points.

GC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, missions are -- for the most part -- horrible
> experiences. I did two years in Belgium and France
> just over 40 years ago, and I hated most of it:
> from the MTC, to being a greenie, to throughout my
> 24 months overall. I wanted to go home most of the
> time.
>

I was in the Mission Belge de Bruxelles as well, 1981-1983

Brussels, Strasbourg, Metz, St Quentin

Wonder if our paths crossed

the French I learned has also served me well

You may be good with French, but you have a long road to tred before you reach summer's and NG's mastery of colorful language.

Hi "Wowbagger" ... sorry for my tardy response. I served in the BBM from early 1979 to early 1981: Lille (Wattignes), Calais, Charleroi, Mulhouse, Seraing (Leige) and Saint-Omer.

I think you started about the time -- or shortly after -- after I returned home ... after a miserable two years; but (Sadly) as a top baptizer. :(

GC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi "Wowbagger" ... sorry for my tardy response. I
> served in the BBM from early 1979 to early 1981:
> Lille (Wattignes), Calais, Charleroi, Mulhouse,
> Seraing (Leige) and Saint-Omer.
>
> I think you started about the time -- or shortly
> after -- after I returned home ... after a
> miserable two years; but (Sadly) as a top
> baptizer. :(

I went to the MTC in late 81, arriving in the BBM in early '82. Luckily, the rules changed when I had been out about 6 months, and I saw 6 months of tracting disappear.

Was so overjoyed to have 25% of my mission removed

Thank you EOD (I mean Jesus)

> Thank you EOD (I mean Jesus)

"Nicely done, you bastard!!!"

--LW, wishing she'd thought of that first

Wowbagger:

Sounds like you started about 10 months after I left; good for you having the 25-percent reduction!

I tell people that my mission was the worst two years of my life. It shocks them, they gasp and ask if I really mean that.

What my mission taught me was to not trust highly religious people, be skeptical of everything they say or request, and never let your guard down.

I was used on my mission, most by those who were Elders, MP, and local leaders. The non-member locals treated me with respect and kindness. Sure yes, we had some great members. But the lying, arrogance, and petty behavior was more the norm than the exception.

At that time it never occured to me that I was of age and I could tell everyone around me that I was going a different direction. Take a bus ride to where ever, get a job, send a letter I was just fine.

My earlier years of life would have been better for it. Rather than coming home after two years to continue the constant struggle to maintain my independance against those trying to control and manipulate me through guilt, shame, and baseless accusations

My mission was my only option, and I am happy to say, I made it worthwhile. Fell in love with the language and culture, and that has been a defining thing in my life ever since.

It wasn’t a waste of time whatsoever. My focus was cultural immersion and that I did. It was back in the days when missions weren’t so tightly controlled, and you could have a personality and get away with it.

I might have enjoyed it more if I was a liar. I think that's what made it so unbearable at times; trying to do missionary work in an honest way when you were expected to maintain unrealistic goals- like teaching two discussions on Sundays when attending two blocks of church meetings and attending baptisms and church firesides on Sunday night.

It wore me out and I had church leaders adamantly tell me that I wasted the Lord's time.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It wore me out and I had church leaders adamantly
> tell me that I wasted the Lord's time.

This is terrible!

Too, besides their lack of basic decency, "the Lord" has infinity on his side - "from everlasting to everlasting" the scripture says, so no worries there - time never runs out! :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2024 03:14PM by Nightingale.

This is why you should never listen to "others"!!

I submit that EVERYTHING can be measured along a continuum, and YOU are allowed to pick the continuum!  But it's likely others will insist you use THEIR continuum.  Please know that there's nothing wrong with telling THEM to F-off ... if you can afford the consequences. (Aye, there's the rub!)

It's likely, if one is honest, that there have been events in our lives to which we've assigned different meanings and divined distinct consequences as the circumstances of our lives evolved/devolved/shrank/expanded...

Life is just one change after another, smothered by the need for 'same-ness.'

Nameless same-ness; don't be different or people will make you invisible.

"There are posts of yours--don't get me wrong, I love 'em--that empty the mind as surely as a lifetime of meditation or a .45 shell delivered by an intimate partner."

--Salmon Rushdie, Transmissions from Tralfamadore, Penguin Books, forthcoming in 2024

  
  

I learned a lot on my mission. I served in every income level area of New York City there was during the crack cocaine gang wars and the mob wars. I saw how the real world worked.

New York City has a way of doing that even without "benefit" of a mission. Living in the city helped me to grow up and become a more functioning adult. I saw all income levels as well.

It was the pettiness, cluelessness, and callousness of the rich (not all of them, but enough of them) that finally drove me towards working in one of the helping professions. I simply no longer had any patience for watching adults throw tantrums over trivial matters. Your decorator (who knows better) ordered too late, and you won't get your new sofa by Christmas? Boo-hoo.

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I learned a lot on my mission. I served in every
> income level area of New York City there was
> during the crack cocaine gang wars and the mob
> wars. I saw how the real world worked.

It's just business, elder.

true, but the experience also absolutely changed the trajectory of my life in a positive way. Can't deny it.

  
  

That's true, but with your awesomeness, I'm sure there are several other trajectories that would have been excellent as well!

At least the one you took happened to be one that turned out well. I feel the same about my choices that were dominated by the church. I could have done a lot worse with or without the church.

let me meet you. That was certainly awesome. :)

I'll just sit this one out.

  
  

Are you suggesting that Sir Biv, AP to the gods, is the Jimmy Buffett of the North?

Are the palm trees swaying? Or is it just me? Either way, I need to go find my lost shaker of salt now.

I got something from my mission that I wouldn't have gotten any other way. Yes there are other things to do with your life at that age, but this one was certainly unique and in many ways was exactly what I needed. Like Rubicon said about New York, I saw a whole slice of the world that was nothing like I knew or would have ever known in the United States Mountains of Utah. Buenos Aires 69-70 hit my reset button. The mission was just the obligatory irritation ever present in life.


You can learn from any experience. You can let any experience break you. You can feel enriched. You can feel robbed. You can be the elder who talks non stop about back home. You can be the
Elder that explores, soaks up. Well, some can.

I never looked at people the same way again.

I'll buy into this as a universal takeaway message when I hear it from someone who was called to Kalamazoo, mi or somewhere frightfully banal. Where they learn nothing interesting in terms of a new culture (you don't have to leave the us to learn a new culture, but you're not going to learn this in a well-off suburb of omaha nebraska. Places too white to require a language, too bland to learn to interact with and serve various socioeconomic groups and cultures.

Just a plain old journey out of one 'burb, into another white 'burb. Slinging the religion.

Would that have been time well spent? Where you walk away with nothing but time served and maybe a few new ways to make hot dish?

I thought about that a lot. Wouldn't disagree. I was in total fear of a stateside mission even while waiting for the call to come. I am so lucky to have had the experience I had. I had a nephew called to the SLC mission and pretending to be so excited about it in the "reveal". I just thought, 'poor kid'.

But a lot of Elders got nothing out of the foreign mission either besides some unusual souvenirs.

My older brother who has now been Bishop, SP, MP, Area Seventy, and TP. He went to Canada on his mission and when asked about his experience he replied "Canada is just a Brand X America." Huh?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so is everything else.

Study abroad can give you some great experiences as well. I studied the French language in my college days, amassing 27 credits overall. And yes, I should have completed the three extra credits to get the second major, but I didn't do that for [really, really stupid reasons.] During that time, I had two study abroad opportunities that were offered to me. The first would have been the second semester of my freshman year, to Chambery, France (I believe the school is now known as the Université Savoie Mont Blanc.) My heart weeps to think of all of the amazing ski adventures that I could have enjoyed in the French Alps. lol The second opportunity was my Junior year to the University of Rennes, which in retrospect would probably have been very cool, too.

My school had tons of opportunities for study abroad. My good friend went on the Semester at Sea, and found it to be life-changing.

There are lots of ways to spend time abroad, and even get college credits for doing so.

Far more profitable.

you have to marry a returned missionary. So I sent a guy off on a mission AND I married an RM. I've said before most of the bishops in this ward since I moved here 38 years ago have not been RMs. The last bishop was put into the SP not long after he was released from bishop.

I was told my dear "husband" was going to be one of the next bishops by the bishop himself and I went inactive immediately. Didn't need our drama played out in public. They didn't know he didn't live here for over 2 years. (Our old babysitter saw him with his boyfriend and her dad was bishop at the time, and the bishop asked me as we lived next door and he caught me outside.)

They had us convinced how lovely a mission was. Then my disabled brother went on a mission. He came back a changed person and not in a good way. I told my little 2-year-old son at the time he WOULD NOT serve a mission.

They sure know how to find things to torture the members, don't they?

Finally, the word got out that many people had bad missionary experiences. Many of them kept their mouths shut after they returned home. Some kept quiet because they felt that it wasn't fair to the church (they blamed themselves). Others were too embarrassed. Perhaps others felt that they wouldn't be believed.

I have shared that there were only two missionaries who served a church mission prior to me leaving. The young man came home early and was "off limits" because he had sinned. The other young woman shared how cold Indiana was and how she could never stay warm riding her bike while wearing a dress. She was supposed to attend a youth fireside about missionary work, but she didn't show up.

Today, I am feeling a sense of dread because one of my granddaughters is leaving on a mission in a week. She is going stateside but to a large southern city. She is smart and very innocent. I'm very worried for her. I did not attend any of the events surrounding her call, endowment or farewell. Why did the age for young women get changed to 19? She only got one semester of college finished.


They don't make these young women knock on doors, do they? Can anyone enlighten me as to what she might be doing to contact potential converts?

gemini Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> They don't make these young women knock on doors,
> do they? Can anyone enlighten me as to what she
> might be doing to contact potential converts?

I live a very mundane, boring but happy life (the church has no control over me :) After work, I cook, clean and take care of my cats. I usually take a 90 minute nap in the evenings.

Last week I missed the excitement because the sister missionaries came to my front yard. They parked on the street in front of my house (I live in the middle of the block). They spoke with my brother-in-law before moving on. They were not wearing pants even though mosquitos are very common in my area.

I believe many missionaries spend several days a week at the chapel or stake center trying to make conatct on social media.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2024 12:55PM by messygoop.

They were not
> wearing pants even though mosquitos are very
> common in my area.

I foresee a big increase in conversions.

I guess I should have stated the sisters were wearing their head turning ankle length skirts with their busy colors and designs blouses. That lady missionary attire is so awesome!

Apologies to those who fantasize over pantless lady missionaries.

Oh, so that’s what you meant!

I suggest scrolling through https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/

...at least the LMs can wear pants when out proselyting.


Okay...  I just found out that you can search for topics in r/exmormon.  The search bar is top, center.  I searched for sister missionaries...  The most recent result was 17 days ago; ten years ago was the oldest I noticed.

Click on the link below to see the results:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/search/?q=sister%20missionaries&restrict_sr=1



hmmm...  I don't know if you have to register to post...

I had a great mission in the same sense that World War One was "the Great War."

Oh, Boche!

Watch it, Jesus. Ich bin kein Deutscher.

Didn't JFK announce that we're all doughnuts?

In your case he wasn't wrong.

Yeah, but you're the one with glazed eyes...

It's the sunk cost fallacy. You may have fun on your mission but your mission was not fun.

It's a mixed bag with me. Some of the worst things in my life happened when I was on my mission (Italy, 1969, shortly after it became a full-blown mission). But I did learn Italian, and comparatively well (good handle on the grammar, good pronunciation, and a great attitude learning it--many of the other missionaries all but refused to learn Italian. My life was shit after I returned from my mission. But long afterwards in 1997, I was put forward for an assignment to the US Embassy in Rome because I had scored almost max on my government Italian test. That got me into more work abroad for the next 11 years. The overseas time increased my retirement pay considerably. I retired in 2017, and have seemingly had more money in retirement than I had while working -- or at least more disposable income, but for multiple reasons.

Fact is, my mission helped my career a great deal. The government also chose to school me in Chinese and German. I really love languages, so that was ideal.But even today, I really resent my mission, too.

I think you are an exception, Cludgie. I think you make a good point about language learning. It is probably the best thing most people get from a mission. Italian is a beautiful language too.

I honorably completed a mission and look what it did to me!

If it wasn't for my mission, I'd never have experienced a nocturnal emission, and thus written my theme song, "Nocturnal Emissions of the Heart".

I thought I was slow, my first nocturnal emission was when I was a HS sophomore.

You had to have been out of HS. Guess you didn't have access to Playb** or Penthou**.