I've felt for a long time that those of us who served missions were pressured, either explicitly or implicitly, to speak only of positive experiences we had on our missions. It was only OK to speak of the negative if it led to something "faith promoting." We couldn't talk about the pressure for numbers, the boredom, the depression, and the bad physical and emotional experiences.

My mission president told us never to say anything negative about our mission, so most of us just remained silent. And anyone who did speak candidly was met with hostility. A friend of mine told me that he gave a presentation to the young men in his ward about his mission, and he felt he should explain to them some of the realities of mission life so that they would be better prepared to serve. After the meeting, his bishop took him in his office and berated him, saying that we should be encouraging young men to serve, that he needed to get them excited about a mission.

But some believing Mormons have told me that I'm just imagining this, that there is no such pressure to provide only the positive. So, am I crazy, or not? I don't think so. If you served a mission, did you experience this pressure to talk about your mission only in positive terms? If so, how did that affect you?

And I was met with hostility when I didn't.

In fact, even on this board, I was met with hostility when I spoke about my missionary experiences that were negative.

That was shocking to me most of all.

But there are quite a few posters who've had terrible missionary experiences.

Sorry, It was the best two years of my life. lol

Looking back it reminds me of the gift card at the store. On the front was a picture of a monk writing something at a desk by candlelight. Inside it showed his repetive writing of the same sentance over and over......"Celebacy is not so bad, Celebacy is not so bad, Celebacy is not so bad......."

You can tell yourself lies all day long. In the end it is just a wasted life with a lot of energy aimed at keeping an illusion alive in your mind and in the mind of others that want to believe it as bad as you do.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2012 04:42PM by upsidedown.

My older brother once cautioned me not to grow a goatee too quickly after my mission because apparently it gave younger prospective missionaries the impression that "the mission was like prison, but now I'm free."

My response, "when it comes to goatees, isn't that how it is?"

I learned quickly that being candid about my mission only got me scorned.

I don't want to rehash the bad experiences, but I told a friend of mine about it after my mission. He nearly started to cry, because he had been home over a year and had been holding in all the negative feelings he'd had. The trauma of the mission had been compounded by the compulsion to keep silent and pretend that not only did it not happen, but that it was an unmitigated positive experience.

The inability of RMs to work through the crap they put up with makes them mission an even more damaging experience.

Think about this:
To even get on a mission in the first place perspective missionaries are interviewed and they are asked about masturbation, inappropiate thoughts, girlfriends, etc,...

You are trained to lie before your mission during these interviews. If you tell the truth they wouldn't let you go. So it is one of those experiences where you are a liar when you leave and you are a liar when you get back, just better at it. Kind of like becoming a politican.

I never saw anything direct, but I think it's pretty well known/enforced in Mormon culture that you only ever make comments in church that are "faith promoting" - not just about missions - about everything.

You're absolutely right about speaking only in positive terms about a mission. All you ever hear is that it's the best 2 years of your life - so when it's not, you still feel like you need to keep up the charade.

I kept a journal on my mission, and even though i was miserable most of the time, I still only wrote positive experiences in it. I was afraid someone else would read it and be disappointed in me. That's how bad the brainwashing was.

I think I did that for about half of my mission. By then I was having serious doubts about the church. Even then, though, I carefully recorded anything that was faith promoting. When I got home, if I couldn't think of something faith promoting or at least harmlessly funny to say about my mission, I was quiet on the subject.

I don't think anyone actually told me to do that. I just felt like I needed to be a faith promoting example. I was decieving myself as much as anyone else.

That return talk was mostly about how rough converts had it because they were perceived as rejecting their families and community, and that in some areas, there were no other Mormons around. So they were alone. I lightly scolded my Utah Mormon audience, reminding them of how easy it was to be LDS.

Back at USU, I don't remember any other RMs talking about their missions, except for stories of odd/bad companions or crazy things that happened. Maybe it was just that I avoided guys who wouldn't shut up about their mission.

I was in his office to be officially released from my mission and he laid things out very clearly. He told me I'd be given opportunities to speak in various wards in the stake but I wasn't to tell the truth about negative things. I was to keep my comments positive and only say things that would encourage the young men to serve missions themselves.

I remember this really rubbed me the wrong way at the time but I couldn't put my finger on why exactly. It just felt wrong that the SP would feel the need to pre-edit talks to keep the younger guys from knowing the truth about mission life.

My mission sucked in a lot of ways but I was a good little kool-aid drinker and I wouldn't have gone the negative route anyway.

If only I had a do over....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2012 07:06PM by Stunted.

I wish more RMs would tell the whole truth about their missions, so the truth about them would get out and more young men would not serve.

No one ever told me what a mission was really like before I went. I never even really wanted to go, just figured I would because it was expected of me. Consequently, they were the worst two years of my life, as chronicled here:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,413439,415986#msg-415986
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,437858,438272#msg-438272
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,407018,407042#msg-407042
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,408509,408509#msg-408509