I haven't read a good mission thread in a long time. My mission was the most poignant time of my TBM life, and consequently the most miserable two years I ever hope to experience. I went in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fully expecting that if I never ever ever let in or gave up, God would do his part to cause me to baptize the Pope. Naturally God never did his part, leading to a high level of disillusionment and confusion in my comparison of the scriptures and reality. In the end this started the chain of events that led me to a life of intellectual honesty and much greater satisfaction out of the church.

So I'll start with one experience I remember in my first few weeks. Our mission office at that time would report weekly success stories from somewhere in the mission, usually comprised to the companionship that had the highest numbers. I longed badly to make the success story (I never did, to my sadness).

One week the story was about one of my fellow greenies who was with me in the MTC. He and his companion had gotten a whopping 5 appointments in a single week! That number was staggering to me and the other missionaries in my apartment, despite the fact that all you had to do was set a place and a time for a second meeting with someone you contacted, even if it was that very spot on the street the following day. We talked to hundreds of people every day, so that's a testament to how tough the missionary work was. Our mission never tracked baptisms, because of how incredibly rare they were.

I couldn't believe it - 5 appointments in one week. My companion and I considered ourselves lucky if we got 1, even though the person almost never showed up for it. The most I ever ended up getting was 3, which was my hallmark week in that area (none of the 3 showed up, but it didn't matter - I had set the appointments). I couldn't help the feelings of jealously for my fellow-greenie, who had been given the former AP as a companion, while I was given the cussing australian who liked to say things like "the relief society president is such a bitch." Obviously that didn't do good things for my opinion of him at the time. I can't believe how naive I was.

All 4 of us in the apartment sat back in our chairs dejected after we heard that story. The purpose of the stories was to inspire us, but that one was just depressing.

not many weeks later, when my frustrations and despair were coming to a head, I decided to excercise my greatest amount of faith imaginable, and I set a goal of 5 appointments for the week. I worked myself sick, literally, tracting in pouring rain and freezing cold. Not only did I not get any appointments, but I didn't so much as give away a Book of Mormon.

I still didn't give up my faith, but it was only downhill after that. Man I've come a long way from those deluded days!

Epic fail.

I went to Thailand. We had no baptisms either. Worked my ass off in the center of town district (horrible place). Nothing.

We tried "spiritual tracting" (pray about where to go before you leave the house). Never, ever, worked.

Epic fail.

In the end this is my enduring memory of Mormonism. It promised big things and delivered essentially nothing. I could go on and on in this vein.

Now it makes perfect sense. It wasn't God's work. I did my part (and then some). I wasn't defective. The product was.

I still believe in God though. I just don't believe he's there to help us find our lost keys, but he/she/it is there. Another day, another story.

spiritual tracting - nice. I did that at least every other day of my mission. Never worked for me either. But the saddest part was that I would only ever hear stories about how well it always worked, so I figured there was something wrong with me. Could never figure out what that was.

For the other missionaries, they might get one or two more contacts - on rare occasions.

But if they put that against all the times it "failed" it would not be considered a success.

Unless you clung to ONLY those few times that you got more contacts.

That's why objectively the missionary program is an utter failure.

The church converts roughly 180,000 people a year.

But if you were to document all the NO's that people gave the "success rate" would be abysmall.

I was under Corriveau, 1997-1998 I think.

When I was a missionary in Virginia in the late 70’s, there was an investigator we were teaching that was married with a young daughter but her husband wanted no part of Mormonism. I could see that our presence and are 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 ZLs to come and straighten out my “bad attitude”. According to the ZLs, we needed the 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 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 they filed for divorce. She left and moved to Utah with the young daughter and the husband stayed in Virginia vowing to do what 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.

That sucks big time. I hate that story.

My brother leaves on his mission next week. He's aware of my disbelief, but its just not one of those things he can get out of. Or, I should say that the price of not going on a mission is something he just isn't willing to pay.

Think about it. He's a believer and wants to go to BYU. Can't really do that and not go on a mission. Or if you do, none of the girls will go out with you and you'll be a pariah. Those girls have been receiving propaganda for years about how they need to marry a returned missionary.

I've done my best to inoculate him against the BS that goes on in the mission field.

* Its the cultiest place in the church.
*It isn't your job to baptize anybody. Seriously. It isn't your job. They act like it is, but it isn't.
*Find something else to do. Use your spare time to learn how to play the guitar or something.

I'm not very confident. I just hope that my input will make it so life isn't as screwed up for him as it potentially could be.

The spiritual tracting thing reminded me of something we did.

This was Germany, and also not very successful. So anything was worth a try. My companion decided to try Kolob contacting.

He went up to a woman and asked if she wanted to learn about Kolob--you know the star nearest the planet where God lives.
She thought he wanted to talk about Kohl--as in Helmut Kohl, the one time Chancellor, who was forced out in a corruption scandal.

That like the other things we tried was not terribly successful. The only person we baptized was an Iranian man, who never came to church after we were transferred out of the area. Probably made his asylum case better. Can't imagine that being a Mormon helps you in Iran.

Missions are just like all of Mormonism seems to me now. Everyone took it so seriously, but looking back it was all ridiculously weird. But the point many of you bring up about making such an effort, and realizing that it was not me but the product resonated.

that an organization like the LDS church can treat its salespeople (the missionaries) like $hit making them feel so totally and utterly worthless and expect them to produce.

Adding to my main post above, there are two stories that the mission president would tell us at this time that really affected me.

The first was the simple example of fleas in a jar. If you put a lid on the jar, they'll eventually hit their head on the jar enough times that they'll stop jumping high enough to get out, even long after you take the lid off. This story was always followed by telling us that the lid was off of Europe, and the only thing keeping it from being successful was the stigma that it wasn't. This story had the terrible side effect of having me think that a lack of "success" was due to my lack of faith to jump high enough, so to speak, and not any natural means.

The second story was of a convert missionary with a mental handicap. Against all expectations he led his mission, but when the mission president felt inspired to send him to the most hardened and least-successful area in the mission, he had misgivings. This area was notorious for breaking missionaries down, and hadn't had a baptism for years. He told the missionary that he had no expectations for him. However, this convert missionary, before he went, promised that he would have 10 baptisms by the end of the month. When the mission president called a few weeks later, he had some 7 or 8 already, with 5 more committed. Of course there were always plenty of tears shed as this story was told.

These things really got into my head at the time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2011 02:22PM by kimball.

kimball Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Adding to my main post above, there are two
> stories that the mission president would tell us
> at this time that really affected me.
>
> The first was the simple example of fleas in a
> jar. If you put a lid on the jar, they'll
> eventually hit their head on the jar enough times
> that they'll stop jumping high enough to get out,
> even long after you take the lid off. This story
> was always followed by telling us that the lid was
> off of Europe, and the only thing keeping it from
> being successful was the stigma that it wasn't.
> This story had the terrible side effect of having
> me think that a lack of "success" was due to my
> lack of faith to jump high enough, so to speak,
> and not any natural means.

How funny. Like you, we also got the flea story. It was a visiting GA whose name escapes me, at a zone conference in Stuttgart. It also gave me pause, to say the least.

Similarly, at the end of my mission, we had another GA come to whip us into shape, since our mission only baptized maybe 8 Germans/month (more American servicemen and asylum-seekers, but they never "counted"). He basically stood up there and told us our work was unacceptable. It floored me, and to this day I regret not standing up and giving him a piece of my mind. I literally had holes in the soles of my shoes, and this bastard makes that comment, fresh off a great night's sleep at the mission home and his warm car-ride to the chapel. Blew my mind then, but understandable now.

All we ever got in my mission 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 Zone conferences provided no relief from the everyday 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 by 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 was because of your unworthiness". 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.

Did we ever receive any praise for our efforts, or encouragement for enduring daily rejection, or gratitude for giving so much of our time from our young lives to bring souls into the church?
Never!

Did we ever receive any encouragement to keep going and just hang in there?
Not once!

All we got was unjustified condemnation for not working hard enough and being slothful, or being nit-picked on the way 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.

Early into my mission 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 your lack of having "The Spirit". The responses received for feeling down or for feeling depressed were "You don't have the spirit, Elder. You must have some un-repented grievous sin in your past, Elder. Are you worthy to be here, Elder? Are you masturbating, Elder?"

I served in the Catholic south of Germany (Bavaria) and had very similar experiences.

I will never forget my first day. My senior trainer was an ex-military guy, so we were out the door by about 7:30. It was a Saturday, and we spent ALL day knocking on doors annoying people. The only person who spoke with us was a young woman whom we had to promise we'd never visit again! We ended up giving her a BOM, but I'm pretty sure it never went anywhere (!).

We literally taught maybe 2 first discussions during those first two months on my mission. It was the coldest winter in Europe in 50 years, so it was spent trudging through snow, trying to speak in a foreign language when your face/lips are frozen, hoping to GOD that someone would show pity on you and let you in to warm up.

Then going home at night with literally nothing to show for it, and getting up to do it again for the next 2 years. The only reprieve was focusing on learning the language and absorbing the wonderful cultural heritage of that part of the world.

As another poster pointed out, my conclusion at the end of those two exhausting and spiritually abusing two years was that God doesn't care about the work; he didn't want it to succeed. Nothing worked.

I know exactly how you feel about the lack of success. I was running myself ragged in Japan and obeying every rule I could with no success.

I had a companion once that was all about "spiritual missionary work." Of course, we never had any success with it.

One time we were heading off to an area that we picked to knock on doors one morning and my companion stopped me, saying that he had a feeling we needed to stop at this apartment building next to us.

We knock a few doors and then he says, "I have a feeling this is the door we are supposed to knock on."

So we knock. No answer.

Knock again. No answer.

He then decided to write a note on one of our fliers and leave it on their door. We of course never heard from them, lol.

Appointments were few and far between for me as well. We'd meet people on the street sometimes and they'd tell us to meet them there are the same spot in a week, because they always are there every week at that time.

We'd ask them for their phone number so we can call before we show up to make sure they are going to be there. They'd always say something along the lines of, "I give you my word that I will show up. You can trust me. I promise."

I can't remember when a street appointment showed up when they said they would lol.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2011 02:48PM by scuba.

guts to ask out loud:

This "great" missionary work has been going on for decades, surely people would be beating a path towards every Missionary door to get dunked? A small rural area for instance would've had several sets of mishies banging on their door perhaps twice a year to sell their religious ware. But no, no one was interested; still wave after wave of fresh young 'uns showed up regularly to bother them. Why was it, I wondered, that the church didn't change it's tactics like its competitors such Buddhism or Islam who've had walk in converts? Why not a host a local radio show? Or buy short tv airtime to hawk their Momo ideas?

Wasn't this the very definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? I knew the answer already as it was drummed into our heads by the MP:
"Oh ye of little faith!" Yeah right, you bastard. Why don't you go tracting yourself ol' man?

Elder Raptor Jesus and his companion Elder Doooooooosh, were prompted by the sweetest of spirits, his Holiness, the Ghost, to hang out in a cemetary for a while.

Not wanting to upset the useless sack of ectoplasmic discharge, we obeyed and wandered around for about an hour.

The promting came again that it was time to leave, and so being obedient little obeyers, we obeyed. While exiting the corpse farm, we stumbled across a Spanish woman with a broken foot that needed some help with her crutches.

As if we had been non-lost-or-presumed-dead-boy-scouts-in-Utah, we helped her straight away. She was very gracious because she had just come from getting on the cast and boot, and was still not used to the crutches. While helping her steady herself, we struck up a conversaition because we were such nice young men.

She seemed interested in what we were doing, and of course, we were more than happy to explain further and further, and could we come over to explain even more about the wonderful message about Elohim's bastard son?

No. But thank you anyway, and off she went.

Thank you Holy Ghost. We obeyed, and you sent us someone who would at least talk to us for 20 minutes.


Yesssssssssssssss. Successsssssssssssss.

Great reads! keep them coming!

I was the obedient TBM missionary. I cared about keeping the rules, but wasn't a Nazi about it. The last 5 months of my mission was spent in a medium-sized town. BTW, it was called Itzehoe. It was pronounced Its-a-hoe. I kid you not.
But anyway, back to my point. Like most german towns, it was surrounded by a green belt of farms and smaller communities. I realized at one point that we could burn alot of time by travelling to the smaller outlying communities by bicycle, contact maybe 5 people in the course of an entire afternoon/evening that were actually at home, and then bicycle home and call it a day. The key was to burn time by just travelling.

I really miss those.

I went to the West Indies Mission, 83'-85', and when I was in Jamaica, we drove up into the mountains to find Bob Marley's house where he was born and also where he is buried.

We found it after asking around a bit. It was a small shack type house on a big bit of land, surrounded by high screen fencing. He's buried in a shrine in a small building near the house.

So we're out in the yard talking with his mom and some of his aunt and cousins. His mom offers to pass the "sacrament" with us....which for rastafarians, means lighting up.

While I was tempted, I and the other 3 missionaries declined, so they brought out oranges instead.

We weren't allowed to take pictures either, but it was one experience that is a highlight in my life, especially being a fan of Bob Marley before and after my mission.

'71 to '73, So Calif, Spanish speaking mission, and where the first cracks in the church appeared. The discussions, mission rules, sales tactics were just translations of the anglo missionary stuff. No thought whatsoever that the latinos were a different culture. After a couple of months out, I could tell that the sales approach was all wrong. And the approach that worked meant breaking most of the mission rules: socializing, eating with, and becoming friends with the contacts, and showing a genuine interest in them and not just another statistic.

So if I could figure this out, why couldn't the GA's back in SLC, or the mission president? Why didn't they get just a quick revelation about the sales approach? A group of us finally took matters into our own hands, started a band and played latin folk music for the branch we were working out of. It turned the members around overnight. We continued to play for the monthly branch pot luck dinner, dressed as mariachis. Then the anglo elders heard about us, and turned us in to the MP. When he called us, we told him to just come out to the next branch dinner and see for himself, which he did. Before the night was over, he and his wife had sombreros and maracas and were dancing with the members. He told us afterwards to keep it up. That led to a full year of playing in spanish wards and branches around So Cal, and once even for the Catholic church to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the San Gabriel mission, for which we got paid, and on a Sunday.

None of us tracted after that, we had more referrals from members than we knew what to do with. Tracting was a total waste of time. Besides, in So Cal, if two guys in suits come walking down the street, it could only be two things; narcs or immigration. In either case, everyone in the house ran out the back door. We could watch the people disappear down the street in front of us, and would seldom get an answer at the doors.

I ended up as an AP to the mission president, and went around trying to teach the missionaries, especially the Spanish speaking ones, to use some common sense and show some interest in their investigators, rather than treat them like numbers. I especially tried to teach them to never turn down an invitation to eat with them; that is seen as an insult. Why would you insult someone that your are trying to convert?

Times have changed, and missions are even more strict about rules and dinner appointments; doing every thing they can to make sure the sales approach fails, instead of learning from their mistakes. I've never said that my mission was the best two years of my life, but there was about 18 months of it that was at least bearable, and successful.

Hi all:

I enjoyed all of your stories. Boy can I relate!

I came out with 14 mishe's...only 2 are still part of the Morg and some are even active from time to time on this site. I wonder if that crosses the mind of the Corporation...then I think, Naahhh...just get new ones, they'll replace the $$

I was out when the revelation on repealing racism was given in 1978. Us poor mishes were totally in the dark about it...our door to door contacts knew more about what our important doctrine was. Trouble is, even years later, I'm still not sure what it was to begin with or what it really is now...probably to change again.


Anyways, thanks for the stories. The fact that we weren't just killed by gunfire, getting run over, or by just found in our flats stiff and dead from starvation never ceases to amaze me.

First, let me say that I HATED being a missionary. Exactly the opposite of the best two years crap so frequently spouted by MORmONS. The longer I did it the more I hated it.

I managed to baptize some ppl. It actually irritated the MP, who apparently was kind of disgusted that a POS missionary like me (simply meaning some one who did not kiss his MP ass because I was quite diligent, devoted &totally worthy( not a brag,just a fact) UNLIKE so many of the "good" elders who did kiss his MP ass) had been blessed with baptisms while so many of his chosen elders could only spin their wheels and shoot off their MORmON mouths.

My big problem was that I really thought a mission was to do the work of the Lord, I was a real believer in Christ, you know the way that MORmONS say they are while most of them have no clue, well I was the one who had no clue about the obvious, I NEVER did catch on to the real vision of our mission - to make our MP into a GA ! Wow, I was so messed up!

My story does have some of a happy ending, one of my converts was instrumental in helping me leave LDS Inc's MORmON church.
Sadly, one of my converts is still active.

My nephew just came home from the mid west US, no baptisms for him. THe LDS missionary program just turns into a bigger joke everyday !

I was involved in a war-of-numbers between the mission leadership and a smallish group of rebellious elders. Most of us were devoted, hard-working missionaries, but we felt that God worked through the Spirit, not through rigid scheduling. When our DLs and ZLs would call for an accounting of our days and weeks we would respond with "Zero" to every question. We locked our ZLs out of our flat and snuck out the back when they came to do splits. We worked our asses of, though, primarily through community service. We would also frequent the parks where we'd talk to folks our age as we skated on a half-pipe, performed bike tricks or, in my case, juggled. It turns out that (shock!) We were pretty well liked and respected. The mission office rewarded us for our ingenuity by transferring us way out into the Australian outback, in tiny little towns disconnected from the rest of humanity.