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Date: April 14, 2024 02:46AM
My fellow exmos. I have posted the story of the happiness I felt on the last day of my mission. It was April 13, 1979. And even though it was 45 years ago, I celebrate April 13 as a personal holiday.
This April 13 I decided to post my story again but in 2 parts so it would fit on the Recovery board. They are titled “My mission and coming home part 1” and “My mission and coming home part 2”. Part 1 is about the mission itself and part 2 is my last day.
I know many here have read my last day account many times over the years. This time I wanted to include what I experienced as a missionary. It contains only a brief synopsis of what I went through as I did not want to write a novel. And a novel would not fit here.
Many of you who served a mission have responded over the years about your last day as a missionary and I have loved all the posts.
For those of you who have read my last day account many times, I apologize for the repetition. Perhaps you might enjoy my experiences of the mission and may reflect what you went through. So, enjoy and celebrate with me this year’s April 13.
PRE-MISSION, BIRTH to 19 Years old
I was born into Mormonism. My mother's family line included some who had crossed in covered wagons to Utah but that family line was never part of any "Mormon Royalty". They were just the Mormon "schmucks" of the day who made their way to Utah. My father's family line came to California for the gold.
From as early as I can remember, it seemed that any family activity always revolved around the Mormon Church. We never could do anything that involved more than a Saturday because we always had to be “back in time” for church on Sunday. Every Sunday, I found myself in church and I cannot remember ever being happy that I was there. Not even once. Going to church was always a chore and something to loath.
My path in life consisted of reaching the typical male Mormon milestones; Primary, Cub Scouts, MIA, Boy Scouts, Deacon, Teacher, Priest, Elder, and four years of early morning seminary. All of which left me with no energy, time, or opportunities to pursue the things I wanted to do. No one ever asked me what I wanted to do. I wanted to grow in my ability to play the piano. I wanted to continue to bowl in the leagues and maybe become good enough to go professional someday as I was averaging around 220. I also wanted to get involved in television productions through the high school career programs and other activities.
In high school, I pursued a few young women that were non-members to my parent’s chagrin. Onetime, I took a cute Filipina non-member girl to the beach for the day and by the reaction I got from my parents, you would have thought that I had spent the day at a brothel. You see, in their eyes, non-Mormon girls were evil and unclean and would lead me into the gutter of life and nothing but bitter dregs awaited me. (We will see how that line of thinking worked out later in my story. Stay tuned.)
From childhood through my teenage years the focus was going on a mission. That was the plan and nothing else held any importance. Got educational opportunities awaiting you after high school? Forget it! Got a girlfriend Mormon or not? Tough! Those things were not part of the mission plan as those things and girlfriends were to be forfeited for a mission. A mission was the only goal that my parents and grandparents gave any value.
All throughout my life I was taught over and over and over again that serving a mission would be this wonderful spiritual experience of serving with my fellow young brethren while having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost guiding you to honest seekers of the gospel and testifying to you daily that the gospel was true. You could have angels administer to you to help you in the work and the MP and his wife would be like a 2nd set of parents to you. They would be kind, loving, and willing to lift your spirits when you would become discouraged and downcast.
I was also taught that a mission would be such a wonderful experience, that once you returned home, you would be like a saturated sponge dripping with spiritual knowledge and with wisdom beyond your years preparing you for a dedicated life to the Mormon Collective. The very first day of my mission and every subsequent day of my missionary experience, showed me that these teachings were all lies. Lies that were spoon fed to me from the first time I could form sentient thoughts.
At 18 my parents and grandparents were always saying to me how a mission would be the next goal to accomplish on the Mormon conveyer belt of happiness. I don't recall them ever asking me whether I wanted to go or not. It seemed like any dreams or wants or aspirations I had were things of naught and had no value. All the focus was mission-mission-mission.
I had graduated a year early from high school before I was 18 and was fully involved in the local college classes. I was so happy to be out of the day-care environment of high school and to be in a college environment. I could call my own shots on what classes I wanted, when to take them, and I no longer needed to have a hall pass to use the restroom.
It was so refreshing to be treated like an adult at last. I had my own car that I refurbished into a virtual new condition and had an interesting gas-price marketing survey job with a company called The Lundberg Survey to supply me with enough spending money.
However, the expectation from parents, grand-parents and the ward leadership that I would be serving a mission at 19 hung around my neck like a millstone. I had absolutely no desire to go whatsoever. I was on a good college path with my education in electrical engineering. I was happy with my life and I really did not want to interrupt the path I was on to do something I already detested.
After high school, I had fallen deeply in love with a beautiful Japanese girl Mormon convert named Kathy that I met at a multi-area youth conference in Monterey. She was not a typical Mormon girl and I enjoyed being with her more than any girl I had ever been with. I fell in love with her as deeply as one could at 18 and I couldn't imagine myself leaving her for 2 long years. The thought of being away from her for so long made me sick inside.
My parents and my grandparents were not happy that I had a girlfriend now. My grandparents were especially upset as they still harbored prejudices from World War 2 toward the Japanese people. More than once I reminded them that World War 2 was their war and not mine. I felt so trapped on this Mormon conveyer belt that was speeding me toward a mission and I could see no way to get off of it. I felt as though my life was coming to an end at 19.
MY OWN ENDOWMENT
Another glorious milestone on the Mormon conveyer belt was to receive my own endowment at the Oakland Temple. This was to be the crowning spiritual experience to sustain me throughout my mission and to give me a great insight and testimony into the workings of the almighty God. At last, I thought, I would be able to feel the real power of the Holy Spirit. Maybe I would see something extraordinary to bolster my faith. Maybe a dear departed relative would manifest itself from the other side and give a whisper of encouragement.
All I can say is that this endowment ceremony was an eye opener to say the least. To say the most, bizarre, as nothing prepared me for what I was getting into, and I thought I knew what the church was all about. How wrong I was!
While going through this bizarre experience of an endowment session, questions kept popping into my mind:
Why is this old man with PolyGrip breath touching me under my togo?
Why am I dressed up like the Pillsbury Doughboy?
Why am I learning secret combinations and handshakes?
Was not secret combinations forbidden by the Lord?
There is a true order of prayer?
You mean, we have been using a false order of prayer?
I am promising to slice my throat or disembowel myself to keep these secrets?
Oh God, that old man in front of me just passed gas and my eyes are watering.
Satan is the best character in this incredibly boring movie.
Where are the spiritual experiences to testify to me that the Church is true?
Where is the burning in my bosom from the “truths” revealed here?
Where are the angels?
Where is the Holy Ghost descending like a dove to confirm my faith?
Where is the exit?
I found the exit and now I was wearing some kind of long-johns under my clothes that were climbing up my butt all the way home. I am supposed to wear these for life? I am so hot wearing these things. I hate being hot.
PREPARING FOR THE MISSION
One Sunday, the Bishop “encouraged” me to spend a week with a full time Elder to help me understand what the mission experience would be like. For that week, I lived the restricted missionary life and detested it. I learned first-hand how much I hated knocking on doors all day. At least I was able to get us around using my car and not some damn bicycle. The moment that week was over, I got into my car to leave, cranked up the stereo, ripped off my tie and suit coat, and drove to the nearest A&W for some decent food after a week of eating the crap this missionary ate. That Papa Burger combo never tasted so good. I sat at the drive-in for an hour relishing the food and my music.
I should have put my foot down after that fiasco and just told everyone that I was not going to do that for 2 years. However, the family and social pressures were too great for me to overcome at 19.
The Mormon conveyer belt continued to move me on and my mission application papers were sent in. I took the church's intelligent tests to see if I had the aptitude for learning languages. I guess I failed because the call came in January of 1977 that I would be serving in the Virginia Roanoke Mission and I was to report to the Salt Lake mission home on April 23, 1977. The prophet's auto-pen signature machine had spoken.
Everyone was so happy but I wasn't. I looked upon that April 23rd date with dread and foreboding. It was the date that my life, as I knew it, would end. I would end up forfeiting everything that made life worth living. I say forfeited and not sacrificed because to sacrifice, means to give up something good for something better. But to forfeit, means to give up something good for nothing.
That April 23rd date felt like a death sentence. Little did I know that this date would mark the beginning of the end of any belief I had in the divinity of the Mormon Church or respect I had for its leaders, and the beginning of the end in any belief that the Lord cared about me. That April day, the warm “Jesus loves me” church I grew up in warped into a mean-spirited adult church.
THE TRIP TO THE SLC MISSION HOME (pre-MTC days)
I had to get up early in order to get to the airport to catch my flight to Salt Lake City and to the Salt Lake Mission home.
I became very depressed inside as I looked around at my room and my home knowing that I would not see it again until I was 21. I looked at my picture of Kathy and began to cry knowing I would not see here anymore. I would not enjoy our pool this summer, or enjoy 2 Christmas holidays, or any other family events. It was hard to comprehend that I would be gone and doing something I already knew I hated to the fullest for 2 long years. I felt like a man who was reporting to prison for the beginning of his sentence of hard labor, convicted of a crime that I did not commit. I had only a Pop-Tart and a glass of orange juice as I was in no mood to eat a large breakfast. Being so depressed, I said nothing on the way to the airport.
In addition to my family, my girlfriend Kathy and our other friends came to the airport to see me off. It was a very tearful and gut wrenching feeling to kiss my family goodbye and especially to kiss Kathy goodbye. The last boarding call was being made and I was compelled to let go of Kathy and walk down the jet way. I found a seat near the back of the plane, sat down, and just sobbed quietly into a blanket. Such bitterness and sadness gushed out as I soaked the airline blanket with my tears. I understood now what those children in the Old Testament must have felt as their parents sacrificed them into the ovens of the idol Moloch. I hoped in vain that this day would never come, but it did.
After the plane was in the air, a flight attendant noticed my anguish and sat by me to ask if she could do something for me. I could hardly talk but somehow was able to ask her for a soda. She was kind enough to get me one and I thanked her for it. Little did I know that this would be the last act of kindness I would receive from anyone for two more years.
I sobbed for most of the journey and I was running out of dry areas of the airline blanket to wipe my tears. Fortunately, the plane’s engines drowned out my sobbing. The plane was only a third full so I could be somewhat alone in my grief. Some how I just knew that this two-year experience was not going to be a good on any level. My intuition soon proved to be correct.
THE SALT LAKE MISSION HOME
The start of my mission in April 1977 pre-dated the practice of having the domestic Elders spending a month at the MTC in Provo. Domestic Elders only spent a week at the Salt Lake Mission Home in Salt Lake City before flying off to their missions to be door to door salesmen for Joe Smith.
I never had a worse week in my life. As I said earlier, the warm loving ‘Jesus loves me’ church I grew up in, warped into a mean-spirited boot camp.
I saw the mission home leaders dish out many acts of incredible emotional cruelty to us young Elders and I began to wonder if I was at the right place. The first set of emotional cruelties was witnessing the scene of missionaries being separated from their families and girlfriends. I had never seen so much anguish and sadness erupt in so many people all at once when the families & girlfriends were told to say goodbye to their missionary and to immediately get out while callously reminding them that they would not see them again for two years.
Since I was from California, I had already experienced my own tearful goodbyes to my family and Kathy two hours prior and I was still reeling from that. How gut wrenching it was to witness once again, people having their hearts broken, and while this ugly scene was transpiring, watching the mission home leaders smile with a sanctimonious glee of sick satisfaction. I wanted to punch them so badly. This scene reminded me of short movie clips of WW2 where families were being ripped apart and sent to various Nazi death camps. Oh, but remember, families are forever...yea, right.
This mission home nightmare week progressed with the mission home leaders attempting to brainwash me, along with the rest of the Elders, with their non-stop scripture and discussion memorization, multiple temple sessions, endless boring meetings, horrible food, having no down time, and enduring sleep deprivation. It was like a week-long Sunday with everyday being not just a 3-hour block of boring meetings and nonsense, but an 18-hour block of boring meetings and nonsense with no breaks. I got so fed up hearing all the berating talks from the mission home leaders or some pinhead General Authority.
They constantly said that I (we) did not or could not be worthy in any way to God, that we were not much better than pond scum, and they cruelly chastised publicly any Elder who asked any tough doctrinal questions. The GA’s were the meanest, coldest, and cruelest SOBs I have ever seen. Any respect I had for them had evaporated. I saw that they had no more inspiration than that of a fence post and no more compassion than someone dripping hot wax into your eyes. If Jesus Christ was like them, I would rather be in outer darkness.
Each day this SLC mission home experience was becoming more and more of a “Bad Boys Reform School” nightmare. I remember one particular day when everyone was gathered in the main meeting room, the GA speaker asked what our jobs as missionaries was to be. Some poor elder raised his hand, stood up and said "...to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and fellowship people into the church." The response from the GA was, "No Elder, you are totally wrong. Your job is to not teach the gospel but to be obedient and tract out people and baptize."
That elder was so humiliated and stunned. I was stunned. Everyone else was stunned. I sat there and thought, "This is not what I signed up for. This is not what I was taught since my early childhood of what a mission was all about.” This was a major damage moment to whatever testimony I thought I possessed. It seemed like I could almost hear that testimony fracturing like a glass window being over-stressed. I kept thinking over & over, "I left behind Kathy, the love of my life, scuttled my college educational opportunities, sold my car, and gave up my good life to endure this emotional brutality?" It occurred to me that I had been lied to all my growing up years.
Oh, how I wish that I possessed the courage then to just pack my bags and hail a cab back to the airport. But at 19, I was too much of a coward to do so. To this day, I regret not taking charge of my life’s direction then and just fly back home before suffering two long years of misery.
Being a cynical person by nature, I inquired at the front desk of the mission home one day and asked if this was really the “LDS” mission home. They said "yes, why do you ask that?" I replied that I have yet to witness any manifestation of Christ-like love from anyone running this place. That raised their eyebrows and after that I seemed to be watched more closely than before.
NOT DRINKING THE KOOL-AID
I did not succumb to their brainwashing but by the end of that god-awful week, I was exhausted and shaken from what I experienced. I was still "Randy" and would not allow myself to turn into a mindless Morgbot named "Elder Jenkins". I still had my self-respect and identity intact after all the ugliness I endured and witnessed. I would not drink their Kool-Aid. Others around me were drinking the Kool-Aid, and heavily, and it was scary but interesting to watch as people became brainwashed and changed before your eyes into mindless missionary Morgbots.
Critical thinking skills had evaporated from most of the Elders. I did talk to a few who were seeing things as I saw them, and they too, wished they had never signed up for missionary service. One of these Elders I talked with did escape because one morning he was gone, bags and all, and no one knew when he left. It was rumored that he left through the loading dock in the back of the building where a car was waiting for him. I wished that he would have taken me with him. I would have paid him too.
Every night, lying on my bunk, my thoughts went around in endless circles for hours thinking: Where was the brotherhood in this nightmare? Where were the spiritual experiences to confirm my testimony as promised? Where was the Christ-like love and appreciation from the Church and its leaders for their "volunteers" that gave up so much to be here? Where was any ounce of compassion for the Elders shaken from being separated from their loved ones?
At the conclusion of this nightmare week, whatever testimony I thought I possessed was gone. All that I was taught prior to this experience of what a mission would be like, turned out to be false. I could not believe that I had been deceived my whole life and that I couldn’t see through the lies. I felt so wronged, trapped, and I could no longer trust anyone.
On the cross-country flight from Utah to Virginia, feelings of great emptiness, deep sadness, and intense foreboding overcame me so much that I didn’t speak to anyone. My thoughts only consisted of saying to myself, "What have I done? How did I end up here? Why was I such a coward for not putting my foot down and telling everyone, No, I do not want to serve a mission? I don't want to be here! How could I have been so foolish to get succored into this shit? I should be in college now. I miss Kathy so much it hurts."
THE VIRGINIA ROANOKE MISSION (Hell on Earth)
The Virginia Roanoke mission was nothing more than a tracting mission with few, if any one there, wanting to know about Joe Smith and his silly church.
If there is anything, I hate more than going door to door selling, I don't know what it could be. I hated tracting with a passion and that is all I ever seemed to do. The drudgery of spending all day, every day, weekends and holidays, knocking on doors, and being told to "get lost" over and over again drove me into the ground. The degree of being told to “get lost” varied widely from a polite "no thanks" to having guns shoved into my face, but rejection is rejection no matter how it is dished out, and nobody can receive daily non-stop rejection and be immune to it.
Coupled with this daily drudgery of all day tracting was the constant harassment of the mission leaders with their false sense of urgency for higher baptism numbers, more tracting hours, and more teaching appointments. The quarterly Zone conferences provided no relief from the mission drudgery as they turned out to be nothing more than day-long reaming sessions by our "numbers-pushing" clown of a mission president and whatever pin head GA that came to speak. "Work harder" they would always say, "Tract more hours and don't waste any time. If you're not finding people to teach, it is because of your unworthiness".
Did I ever receive any praise for my efforts, or encouragement for enduring daily rejection, or any gratitude for giving so much of my time from my young life to bring souls into this church? Never!
Did I ever receive any encouragement to keep going and just hang in there? Not once!
All I ever got (as well as the other missionaries) was unjustified condemnation for not working hard enough, or for being slothful, or being nit-picked on the way we were dressed, or condemned for random bad luck, or for breaking mission rules; rules that often contradicted each other so you were damned either way.
No matter how much success you had, it was never good enough.
I found out the hard way that if you ever let it be known that you were having a bad day or that you were tired or depressed or just needed a break, you were rebuked harshly for not having "the spirit". The retorts for revealing that you were feeling down or for feeling depressed were "You don't have the spirit, Elder.” Or “You must have some un-repented grievous sin in your past, Elder.” Or “Are you worthy to be here, Elder?” Or “You must be masturbating, Elder?"
Empathy and compassion for another were foreign concepts and especially to the Mission President and the Elders that came from the “Mormon factories” of Utah, Idaho, or Arizona. I found them to be intolerant, arrogant, selfish, compassionless, and the most ignorant bunch of oxygen wasters that I have ever been forced to associate with. Their treatment of non-members was embarrassing. I found out later that the Elders and Sister Missionaries that were not from Utah, Idaho, or Arizona felt the same way about the “Factory Elders”.
I never went away from any Zone Conference uplifted and rejuvenated. I always left feeling depressed. Driving back after any Zone conference, I just counted the days I had left before I could go home.
NUMBERS, HOURS, CHARTS, & GRAPHS
I saw firsthand how the gospel of Jesus Christ took a back seat in favor of just getting higher numbers of tracting hours and baptisms for meaningless reports.
During my first few months of my mission, there was a woman we contacted that was married with a small young daughter and her husband wanted no part of Mormonism. Our presence and our constant visits were really irritating the husband and was causing a lot of marital unrest in this once happy marriage.
I voiced my concern that maybe we should not pursue this family as we were becoming more and more unwelcome to the husband. I resisted my companion’s eagerness to continue teaching this woman and it became such an issue between us that my companion called the Zone Leaders to come and “straighten out my bad attitude”. According to the Zone Leaders, we needed baptism stats higher and I was standing in the way. Well, being the junior companion and having my concerns swept aside, we ended up going several more times to teach this woman and she was agreed to be baptized without her husband’s blessing.
Afterwards we found out that they began some serious arguing and fighting over her being a member and eventually she filed for divorce. She left with her young daughter and moved to Utah and the husband stayed in Virginia vowing to do whatever he could to destroy the Mormon church.
So, a once happy home and marriage was systematically destroyed and a little girl had her world turned upside down for the sake of baptism numbers. It was the saddest thing I ever had to be part of.
On and on and on did the days of being a missionary drag on. I found myself just merely existing to get up in the morning and going tracting, maybe eating some crappy lunch if I could afford it, then go do more tracting, then have some swill quality dinner, then doing even more tracting and then maybe, if I was lucky, go to a teaching appointment that, almost without fail, fell through. The next day I would do the same thing, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day...all week...week after week...month after month. It was work without end, and toil without reward.
The yearly holidays would come and I would find myself out tracting. It's my birthday and instead of celebrating, where am I? I am out tracting. It's Thanksgiving Day, and, where am I? Out tracting and interrupting someone's family gathering. It's Christmas time! That depressing time of year deserves its own section.
THE DEPRESSING MISSIONARY CHRISTMASES
Christmas time was the most depressing holiday for me as a missionary. Knocking on door after endless door in the December bone chilling Virginia winter was so depressing. I was always thinking of my family buying gifts for each other and thinking about being with Kathy.
When out tracting and people opened their door, I could see their lighted Christmas trees with presents under them and see them enjoying the holiday time. The flood of depression that washed over me from witnessing this would make my heart almost stop. How I longed to be with my family and Kathy. How I missed the fun of Christmas shopping. How I missed watching football while a fire burned in the fireplace. How I missed listening to Christmas music and enjoying all the fun things of the Christmas season that were now, as a missionary, considered evil, taboo, slothful activities, and a waste of time.
No one, and I repeat, no one who answered their door at this time of year were ever interested in knowing about Joe Smith, especially from two depressed 20-year-old young men who didn't even want what they were selling. I remember some people wishing us a "Merry Smithmas" because they believed Mormons worshipped old Joe and looking back now, I understand why due to all the emphasis at church during the Christmas season on Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, and more Joseph Smith.
What kind of church sings a song like "Praise to the Man" at Christmas time? And don't get me started on the un-Christmas like services the Mormon Church has. I was always grateful that no investigators ever showed up at church during December.
I did call home a few times at each Christmas and also called Kathy. I was so happy to hear their voices that I cried and cried and could hardly talk. I did not want to hang up because I knew I would sink even further into depression (if that were possible). When the calls ended, I sat there on the floor and just cried until there were no more tears left, thinking to myself, over and over again, HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID TO END UP IN THIS GOD-FORSAKEN PLACE AND CONDITION?
The first mission Christmas I experienced was the worst of all because I knew that when Christmas rolled around again, I would still be trapped in Virginia doing the same exact thing, more endless mind-numbing tracting with 4 more months to go after that. Sure enough, when the 2nd Christmas came, I found myself still stuck in Virginia and still saddled with a smothering religious duty of endless tracting to perform. My depression had reached such depths; I was in an unknown lifetime low.
It was this 2nd Christmas where I found out why all the Elders in the mission were so afraid of the idea of me ever becoming their companion. During my first Christmas, I had a companion where our chemistry didn’t work at all. He complained falsely to the Mission President that I was lazy and always had a bad attitude. Apparently, word spread what he had written about me. I did write a letter to the Mission President requesting a transfer. But he wrote back that he would not transfer me and continued berating me in his letter that I was slothful and to just “shut up and work”.
There was another incident that happened where a missionary named Elder Tolman came down with cancer. He was in a lot of pain, but before he was to go home early, he wanted to tour the mission to meet with the Elders on last time and I got to meet with him and talk with him.
Elder Tolman and I talked alone for about 30 minutes one day and I could see his efforts to hide the pain and fatigue he was experiencing from his cancer. In his conversation with me, he did ask me how I was doing and I confided in him that I was tired, depressed, and burned out from being a missionary, and tired of the bullying treatment I kept experiencing with the Mission President and his staff, and was ready to just terminate my mission. Elder Tolman told me that he knew how I felt and said that there were many days he wished he could have just had 2 weeks off to rest from being a missionary. He was good person and I felt that he really cared about how I was feeling.
Unfortunately for me, the Mission President found out what I had said to Elder Tolman. From that day on, and for the remainder of my mission, the Mission President showed a very obvious disdain for me as I never could measure up to Elder Tolman. I had become a pariah to everyone in the mission without cause.
DEPRESSION BEYOND MEASURE
In a desperate attempt to deal with the pain of my loneliness and hopelessness, I decided to just shut myself down and do the physical motions of the job to just get the tracting hours to go on the weekly report. Some people commented to me that my countenance had become so joyless but I had run out of energy to fake happiness anymore. I just didn't care. My prayers were never answered. My leaders just constantly condemned me unjustly and my family seemed oblivious to my suffering.
The mission drudgery continued relentlessly on and on. More & more lonely thoughts would swirl together endlessly in my mind with ever increasing intensity. "I could be in school now finishing my degree…I wish I had my car instead of this damn bicycle…I am so cold or so miserably hot…I am so lonely and I miss Kathy and her soothing presence…How could I have been so stupid to allow myself to end up in this hellhole place?"
I did not realize it at the time how dangerously depressed I was. I found myself having no hopes, no dreams, no joy, and no real reason for living anymore. How down and out I was. "Could I do anything at all to alter this joyless existence?" I thought to myself. “Was there any way to put an end to this? Could I do anything? What options are open to me? There must be some solution I am overlooking to end this pain.” I have been depressed before just like anyone else and always bounced back. But this was different. I was experiencing pain in my chest from this intense depression. This was a first.
THOUGHTS OF SELF DESTRUCTION
One solution to my depression started to creep into my mind; a solution that would definitely put an end to this miserable existence; a solution that had a compelling and growing sweetness to it.
For the first time in my life, the thought of suicide presented itself as a sweet and practical way for ending my joyless existence. It was such a shock to me that I could seriously consider such a course of action, but I had reached absolute rock bottom and I truly felt that I had nothing to lose. Who would miss me? Who would care?
Here I was, a missionary of the Lord's supposedly true church, who was supposed to be blessed by the Lord for sacrificing all to serve him, who was promised the blessings of success for following all the ridiculous & uncountable double-bind rules, and who was promised the ministering of angels for support and protection.
But instead, I was a missionary that was planning out my own murder in order to end the pain of depression generated from the drudgery of missionary life and to end the lonely horror of having nowhere to go and escape, of having no tears left to cry, of having no one to talk to, and of being unable to produce the courage or money or family support to just leave. "My yoke is easy; my burden is light"…The Lord was apparently out to lunch when this missionary program was enacted.
Several circumstances offered me the chance to end it all but I never fulfilled them. One day, an opportunity came as I was riding my bike on a narrow busy road against traffic. I saw a large semi-truck approaching. Without any sense of self-preservation, I found myself on a collision course with it. Thoughts of how quick and sweet the end would come, kept me there in that lane. Some people slowed down and yelled at me to get out of the way and the horn of the truck was blaring loudly. But I did not care. Why should I?
Sweet relief from the horror of being a missionary was coming fast. Only when the thoughts entered my mind of the sadness Kathy would feel from my death, did I swerve back to the narrow shoulder and barely in time. What an intense feeling it was to not have anything to lose and where even your own life means nothing to you.
After I pulled back onto the shoulder, I stopped and looked back at the truck fading into the distance and then something bizarre happened. I actually heard in my heard a loud snap like two pieces of wood slapping together and then I felt a strange sensation I cannot describe. The fear of man seemed to be leaving me and I felt a strange sense of empowerment and courage that I never before had. I believed my brain was saying "Enough of this stupid mission bullshit. Quit taking shit from anybody anymore.” Unknown to me, I would use this new courage at my last Zone Conference.
THE DROOLING ANGRY MISSION PRESIDENT
Four months before I was to go home, at my last Zone Conference, I had the usual interview with the Mission President as every missionary did. But as the usual "blame the Elder" one sided interview commenced, the Mission President became unusually hateful and vindictive toward me because this time he stood up from his desk and proceeded to yell into my face saying point blank that "…I was a failure as a missionary…" as he pointed out my lack of baptisms and the low number of investigator discussions indicated on my weekly reports. No mention from him that a week before we had baptized a young couple.
Every Zone conference produced a similar tirade but this time was the last straw with this GA-wannabe pin head. Too many times did I sit through similar interviews enduring his phony self-righteous indignation and I said nothing. But now, with my new found courage, I fired back at him with everything I had.
I stood up from my chair, leaned over his desk and yelled back into his face saying, using several colorful metaphors at a very high volume, that he was a F%$&**ing failure of a mission president for blaming me for things I had no control over and I was not someone who was not intimidated nor motivated by his threats. I continued yelling into his face saying that if he was incapable of offering any kind of encouragement, support, or compassion for me or any other missionary who gave up everything to be in this dump of a place, he was unfit to be here, and should go pack his bags, take his clueless wife with his dumb-ass children, and get the hell out of our lives so someone qualified with Christ-like attributes could take his place. I also told him that most of the Elders despised him and wished that they could be transferred to another mission. This man was not the kind of man used to being put in his place by anyone let alone a lowly elder.
In all my days there, I have never seen him madder but I didn’t care anymore. He went beyond red faced to purple and began to drool onto the desk. He was so angry he could not speak anymore and I had run out of colorful metaphors to continue.
We stared at each other for a few moments then I turned around and began walking out the room. Before I left the room, my last words to him were that I would never speak with him again for any reason. I walked out and left him sitting there with his puddle of drool on the desk. I never did speak to him again or send in another weekly report for the remainder of my mission.
After that heated exchange, I went outside the church building for the remainder of the Zone Conference and fed squirrels from a jar of Planters Peanuts. I was drained body and soul and that was the last time I ever took lip from him or anyone again.
Any belief I had left of the divinity of the Mormon Church and any belief that God cared about me came to an end. I now saw with clarity that the Mormon Church was a bowl of excrement and that I had been fooled and swindled out of two years of my young life, tricked into laying on the "Alter of Forfeit" my girlfriend, my education, my car, and my freedom. Now what do I do? I have 4 months left. Should I end my existence? Do I have the strength see this hell hole through? Should I just go home now?
I decided to finish the mission so my parents could at least have their bragging rights in the ward of having an RM son. That last 4 months was the hardest time I ever had to go through but my thoughts and desire to commit suicide slowly evaporated. I knew I was going home soon and Kathy was still there with her weekly letters to keep me going.
I do wish to say that had it not been for Kathy's love and her weekly letters & tapes, I would have gone over the edge and terminated myself. Unknown to her, she was the only anchor that kept me tethered to the world of the living.
My day of release from the "best two years of my life" was getting closer every day. For the remaining 16 weeks, I just did the mechanics of the job. I did not care about sending weekly reports or what the members of the branch thought anymore. Mentally, I had checked out.
Continued in My mission and coming home part 2