Does anybody have any insider information about any extra details that a bishop and stake president might pass on to church headquarters for mission assignment process.

I have a friend who just got back from North Carolina where he was in the dangerous sections of the ghettos. He is a tough guy himself, but he mentioned that a wrestling champion had just arrived in the mission when he was leaving.

This doesn't seem to be a coincidence. They must add additional details about personality traits and physical strength.

As I recall my friend completed a new missionary application process that he did online and includes a personality test. Can anyone confirm this?

I find it interesting how the LDS missionary program views itself as an army that must infiltrate these nearly lawless illegal immigrant ghettos and that it will improve these people's lives by putting these young men in danger to promote its naive views and solutions. My friend told me a missionary was recently kidnapped for a couple days, but escaped. Interesting that the church has no publicity for these incidents involving illegal immigrants.

These mission presidents must truly believe they are on a divine all-or-nothing mission. In reality dangerous missions seem to create members that will find it very hard to imagine the possibility that the sacrifices they have made were for naive reasons. Hmm, maybe that also has something to do with why they are sending guys to these dangerous areas. Men are apostatizing at higher rates than women according to John Dehlin's latest podcast.

I went to Denmark. Lived like a Danish king in fine apartments, was never in danger, and enjoyed the beauty of the country, and I sacrificed nothing except my time. And it still took a major relationship disappointment and a couple semesters of social and physical sciences to put things together. After all of this it was still a traumatizing, but fairly quick process for me to accept my worldview was arrogant when I started coming across more accurate views of Mormon history.

Did anybody else have a very easy, no-sacrifice experience with their mission years? And would you attribute it to how quickly you were to question your Mormon worldview?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2012 01:12AM by Brian M.

Henry B Eyring's daughter was in my ward at BYU. In 2002, he gave a fireside with just our ward. He had no prepared remarks, and just asked what questions we had. One question asked was regarding the missionary selection process. He described that once a week, they made missionary calls. They sat in front of a computer that had the application on one side, and a list of missions sorted by the greatest need on the other. They would look at the picture, look at the needs, and make an assignment. That didn't sound very spiritual, but Henry B. Eyring got all teary as he told the second part. Every now and then, he would see an application and ask to take it home with him. He would pray about it, and come back the next week knowing where they needed to go.

Even when I was TBM, I knew there was nothing spiritual about the selection process. I had many friends called to serve in some exotic areas that were unable to get a visa. They ended up spending their missions stateside. If it were inspired, shouldn't they have seen that one coming?

I had a friend who was near fluent in French. Went to Wisconsin. I had a couple of years of college German, but my ancestry was Danish. Went to DK.

Like you said, after hearing all the scary stories that others had about potential physical confrontation or physical violence/harm, I was certainly happy to be in DK--we had it very, very good.

I figured out pretty quick that mission and temple name assignments were just computer assignments. When I was told that my "special" temple name could be retrieved for me by looking up the day which I received my endowments -- well, my logical brain said there's only one explanation for how that works, lol.

reasonabledoubt - do you know that EVERYONE who went to the temple on the same day got the same new name? Very personal.

Yes, that's exactly what I was implying!

That what the temple president told me when I got my endowments, and my dad who was a long-time temple worker confirmed it. I will admit, I felt a little odd knowing that my dad knew my temple name by nature of going with me through the temple that day. It kind of threw a wrench in the whole "always keep secret and never reveal" logic.

Many times I've also overheard the guy next to me at the veil whisper the exact same new-name as me. I've never heard him whisper any different name.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 11:38AM by kimball.

He visited her once a month.

I served in Russia and I loved it (besides the teaching part) I would go out to eat all the time, learned the language, met a bunch of interesting people and sightseeing. It helped that our mission was so big that I wouldn't see MP or APs for months

Where in Russia did you serve?

Novosibirsk, Russia 2003-2005

A dear friend of mine was called to the New York Mission during the World's Fair. He is not blond, blue-eyed and gorgeous. A little rough around the edges, but the soul of a Saint, truly. He did not work at the fair a single day but spent his time in the Bronx. Not a single baptism. Instead he baby sat, provided health care and so on. To my mind he served the better mission anyway.

Of the four sisters that entered the LTM for my mission, Our last names started with A,B,C, and D.

When I went, they gave all missionaries a language aptitude test. It didn't test if you had any particular language proficiency or not, rather it tested your ability to distiguish sounds.

Apparently, I did well as they sent me to The Netherlands. 'lo and behold, I'm from Dutch extraction. I didn't even know that as my name is way-way back German.

Ron

Nederland for me too! Appeldoorn, Eindhoven, and Groningen. 'bout froze to death.

'75 0 '77. Neil Kooyman, RIP and John Limburg. Apeldoorn, Zoest, Gouda, Hilversum, den Haag.

I took mine in '82, and was told that the language used on my aptitude test was Kurdish. When I told friends about it, nobody believed there was any such language or people. What a difference a couple of decades make.

The test is called the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT). It's still used in various settings.

I also served in the Netherlands 94-96. Good to see there's a lot of Dutchies on the board.

I went to Denmark as well, and I agree it was a very cushy mission. I loved learning the language and biking across the countryside. And it's true, we were spoiled. I remember we all had money to spare so we bought mini-disc players. I was a super obedient missionary and still consider those 18 months some of the happiest of my life. But having zillions of conversations with Danes (ranked the happiest people on the planet), definitely got me thinking about hearing their message of happiness rather than convincing them to listen to the one I had to share.

Yeah, one of the conversations that stuck out to me was with a well-traveled and successful Danish guy who brought up the point that the diversity of beliefs and cultures on the earth is what makes it interesting and fun. It planted a seed of questioning in me whether the church's missionary efforts was misguided for what was best for people.

Mini discs? Those were popular among the missionaries when I first got there in 2005, but by 2006 MP3 players were the new thing.

What year were you there?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 07:14PM by Brian M.

2002-03 Maybe you harvested some of the seeds I planted. I gave out heaps of Mormons Bog's.

I know somebody who could speak 5 European languages fluently, and was sure he would be sent to one of these countries. He was "called" to Finland. He did not speak Finnish.

But Finnish is one of the hardest languages to learn, and it should not have been a surprise that "God" found somebody who was good at languages to go there.

Equally, given the appalling reputation of the British for foreign languages, it is no wonder that so many of us end up in the British Isles or Ireland!

I had 4 years of French in HS and took two semesters at BYU, including French 301: Intro to French Literature, before going on my mission.

They split the Paris mission into two right as I went, so they needed over 100 new missionaries in a short time. Guess where I went on my mission.

Was it inspiration, or was it just a corporation filling in its workforce as it expands in a particular region with people already skilled? That's up to you.

On the other hand, Mitt, Tagg, and Matt Romney all went to France as well. Coincidence?