A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the last day of my mission and how happy I was to be coming home. Today however, marks the 35th anniversary of the day I left for my mission. I remember how sad and depressed I was on this day back in 1977.

I am sure many RMs remember the despair of their departure day to go and serve a mission. What say you my fellow RMs? Did you find that you were lied to about what a mission was all about?

Below is my story of my first day and week of being a missionary. For those who were fortunate not to be a missionary, here is an insight into the beginning of the 2 year living hell known as a Mormon Mission.

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All throughout my childhood I was taught over and over again that serving a mission would be this wonderful spiritual experience serving with my fellow young brethren while having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost guiding you and your companion to honest seekers of the gospel and testifying daily to you that the gospel was true. It would be an experience that, once you returned home, you would be like a saturated sponge dripping with spiritual experiences and with wisdom beyond your years preparing you for a dedicated life to the Morg collective. The very first day and every subsequent day of my missionary experience showed me that this was all a lie. A lie spoon fed to me from the time I first could form sentient thoughts.

At 18 my parents and grandparents were always saying to me how a mission would be the next thing to accomplish on the Mormon conveyer belt. I don't recall them ever asking me whether I want to go or not. It seemed like any dreams or aspirations I had was a thing of naught and had no value. All the focus was mission-mission-mission.

I had graduated early from high school before I was 18 and was fully into college. I was so happy to be out of the ‘day-care' environment of high school and to be in the college environment where 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 can. It was so refreshing to be treated like an adult for once. I had my own car and an interesting Gas-price marketing survey job to supply me with enough spending money. However, the expectation from everyone that I would be serving a mission at 19 hung around my neck like a millstone. I had no desire to go whatsoever. I was on a good college path with my education in electrical engineering and I really did not want to interrupt it.

Around this time I also had fallen in love with a beautiful Japanese Mormon girl convert named Kathy that I met at a multi-area youth conference in Monterey. She was not the typical Mormon girl I was used to 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 doing so made me sick inside. I felt trapped on this Mormon conveyer belt speeding me toward a mission and I could see no way to get off. I felt as though my life was coming to a dead end at 19.

The Mormon conveyer belt moved on and my 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 for me but I wasn't. I looked upon that April date with dread and foreboding. It was the date that my life as I knew it would end and that I would end up forfeiting everything that made my 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 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, the beginning of the end of my belief in the Church leaders inspiration, and the beginning of the end in any belief that the Lord cared about me.


THE DAY I LEFT FOR THE SLC MISSION HOME
I got up early on the morning of April 23, 1977 in order to get to the airport to catch my flight to Salt Lake City. I slept very little the night before and woke up very depressed as I looked around at my home knowing that I would not see it again until I was 21. I would not enjoy our pool; enjoy Christmas, or other family events for 2 long years. It was hard to comprehend that I would be gone for 2 years doing something I already knew I would hate. I felt like a man who was reporting for the beginning of his jail sentence. I had only a Pop-Tart for breakfast as I was in no mood to eat.

In addition to my family, my girlfriend 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. As I walked down the jet-way alone and found my seat on the plane, I just broke down and sobbed. I understood now what those children in the Old Testament must have felt as their parents sacrificed them into furnaces of the idol Moloch. I hoped in vain that this day would never come but time is no respecter of persons.

The flight attendant noticed my anguish and did come sit by me to ask if she could do something. I could not really 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 another two years.

I cried for most of the journey. Fortunately, the roar of the plane’s engines drowned out my sobbing and the plane was only a third full so I could be somewhat alone in my grief. Somehow I just knew that this 2 year experience was not going to be a good one.

THE OLD SALT LAKE MISSION HOME (pre-MTC)
The start of my mission in April 1977 pre-dated the existence of the MTC in Provo so I spent a week in the mission home in Salt Lake City before going off to Virginia to be a door to door salesman for Joe Smith. It turned out to be the worst week I have ever experienced in my life.

While there, I saw the mission home leaders hand out many acts of incredible emotional cruelty. I was not sure if I was at the right place. Some of the emotional cruelties included 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 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 again people having their hearts broken, and, while this ugly scene was transpiring, watch the mission home leaders smile with a sanctimonious glee of sick satisfaction. I wanted to punch them. This scene looked like a WWII movie where families are ripped apart to be sent to Nazi death camps. Families are forever...yea right.

The mission home nightmare week progressed with the mission home leaders attempts at brainwashing me with their non-stop scripture memorization, temple sessions, endless boring meetings, horrible food, and 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.

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?" I replied that I have yet to witness any manifestation of Christ-like love from anyone. That raised their eyebrows and after that I seemed to be watched more closely than before.

This SLC mission home experience was becoming more and more of a “Bad Boys Reform School” nightmare. Daily, I was being trashed and condemned for any imperfections I had constantly by the mission home leaders or some pinhead General Authority (GA). They constantly said that I did not or could not be worthy in any way to God, and unjustly chastised anyone when they asked any tough doctrinal questions. The GA’s were the meanest, coldest, and cruelest SOBs I have ever seen.

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 bring 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 came here for. This is not what I was taught since my early childhood of what a mission was all about. I must have been lied to all my growing up years." 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 under stress.

From that moment on, I kept thinking to myself, "I left behind Kathy, the love of my life, scuttled my college educational opportunities, sold my car, and gave up my good life for this?" Oh how I wish that I possessed the courage then to just get up, pack my bags, walk out the door, 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 flying back home before suffering two more years of similar shit. During the remainder of my week at that Salt Lake Mission Home I witnessed many other incidents of cruelty and ugliness toward the Elders. Any respect I had for the General Authorities for the church was now gone.

NOT DRINKING THE KOOL-AID
At that SLC mission home, if I learned anything at all, it was that the GA’s of the Mormon Church are the most compassionless SOB pin heads I have ever seen. I saw that they had no more inspiration than that of a fence post and no more compassion than someone enjoying dripping hot wax into your eyes.

I was able to stay above the brainwashing but by the end of that god-awful week, I was exhausted and shaken from what I experienced. I still had my self-respect and identity intact after all the ugliness I endured and witnessed. I was still "Flash" and did not turn into a mindless Morgbot named "Elder Flash". I would not drink their Kool-Aid. But 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 Morgbots.

At night, while lying on my bed, my thoughts went around in endless circles 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?

Whatever testimony I thought I possessed had now shattered to powder. All that I was taught prior to this experience of what a mission would be was false. I could not believe that I had been deceived my whole life to this point.

Well, one week of the mission was now completed and 103 weeks were left. Life was going downhill fast. The week finally ended so now it's off to the Virginia Roanoke Mission hellhole.

On the cross country flight from Utah to Virginia, feelings of great emptiness, deep sadness, and foreboding overcame me with such intensity that I did not speak to anyone the whole way there. 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."

Sigh... my brother is coming home in 2 days. I cant help but wonder if he has had any of these experiences. I hope to God he has.. that way he can be smart enough to turn away from the nasty TSCC. What happened since then, flash? I would love to hear more. Are you well?

'rander70', I am doing well. To answer your question about what happened since? Look for a post from me dated April 12. I posted about the day I came home.

I also read your 'coming home' post. Congratulations on coming through it all in one piece. You entered a dark tunnel and finally found some light at the end. Now, you need to post some more about things that happened to you in-between!

anon7, you have inquired to recieve further light and knowledge of what happened to me after arriving in Virgina and going home. Blessed art thou for thy curiosity. Enjoy.

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THE VIRGINIA ROANOKE MISSION (Hell on Earth)
The Virginia Roanoke mission was nothing more than a tracting mission with few, if any people there, wanting to know about Joe Smith and his silly church.

If there is anything I hate more than going door to door selling something, 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” 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. A person cannot receive daily non-stop rejection and be immune to it.

Coupled with this daily drudgery 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 or by whatever pin head General Authority 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". The gospel really took a back seat in favor of just getting higher numbers of tracting hours and baptisms.

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

Did I ever receive any praise for my efforts, or encouragement for enduring daily rejection, or gratitude for giving so much of my time from my young life to bring souls into this church?
Never!

All I got ( and all the other Elders too) was unjustified condemnation for not working hard enough, for 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.

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, it was always because of 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 grievous sin in your past, Elder.” “Are you worthy to be here, Elder?” “Are you masturbating, Elder?”

Empathy and compassion toward one another were foreign concepts in this mission especially to the MP and the Elders that came from Utah or Idaho. They were the most intolerant, arrogant, selfish, compassionless, and ignorant bunch of oxygen wasters I have ever been forced to associate with. The Elders (or Sisters) not from the Moridor of Idatah (Utah-Idaho) felt the same way, I found out later.

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 lunch if I could afford it, then go do more tracting, 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. Work without end, 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 chapter.


THE DEPRESSING MISSIONARY FLAVORED 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 air, I was always thinking that another Christmas is coming and going by and I am still stuck here as a missionary saddled with a smothering religious duty of endless tracting to perform. I was always thinking of my family buying gifts for each other and thinking about being with Kathy.

When people would open their door during my endless days of tracting, I would see their lighted Christmas trees with presents under them and see them enjoying the holiday time. These scenes would make my heart almost stop from the flood of depression that would wash over me. How I longed to be with my family and Kathy. How I missed the fun of Christmas shopping. How I missed watching NFL 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 olds 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 on Joseph Smith, 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 at Christmas time.

I did call home a few times at 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 was possible). When the calls ended, I sat there and cried until there were no more tears left thinking to myself over and over again how could I have been so stupid in my choices to end up in this god-forsaken place and condition? The first mission Christmas I experienced was worst of all because I knew that when Christmas rolled around again a year later, I would still be trapped in Virginia doing the same exact stuff; more endless mind-numbing tracting.


THOUGHTS AND PLANS OF TERMINATING MYSELF
The mission drudgery dragged relentlessly on and more & more lonely thoughts would swirl around 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 I am so miserably hot.” “I am so lonely and I miss Kathy so much; her kisses; her soothing presence.” “How could I have been so stupid to allow myself to end up in this hellhole place?”

In a desperate attempt to deal with the pain of my loneliness and hopelessness, I just shut myself down and just did the physical motions of the job to get the tracting hours to go on the weekly report. Some people did comment to me that my countenance had become so joyless but I had run out of energy to fake it 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.

I found myself with no hopes, no dreams, no joy, or any real reason for living anymore. How down and out I was. "Could I do anything at all to change this hellish existence?” I said to myself. Was there any way to put an end to it? What could I do? What options are open to me?" A solution slowly began to creep into my mind; a solution that would definitely put an end to this comedy.

For the first time in my life, I started considering suicide as a sweet and practical way for ending my joyless existence. To part of me, it was such a shock to even seriously consider such a course of action but I had reached absolute rock bottom and I truly felt that I had nothing to lose.

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 amount of double-bind rules, who was promised the ministering of angels for support and encouragement.

Here I was, a missionary, planning my own murder as the way to end the pain generated from the drudgery of missionary life and to end the lonely horror of having nowhere to go and escape. I had reached the point of having no tears left to cry, 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 the missionary program was enacted.

Several circumstances presented themselves as the chance to end it all but I never fulfilled them. For example, one day I was riding my bike on a narrow busy road against traffic and I saw a large semi-truck approaching. Without any sense of self-preservation, I found myself on a collision course with that truck and I didn’t care.

Thoughts of how quick and sweet the end could come, kept me there in the 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. Sweet relief from the horror of being a missionary was coming fast. Only when the thoughts of the sadness Kathy would feel upon hearing of my death entered my mind, did I swerve back to the shoulder and barely in time. What a bizarre feeling it was to not have anything to lose or where even your own life means nothing to you.

After this event, I actually heard in my brain a loud snap sound and I think my brain was saying “enough of this mission bullshit.” I had reached the point that I was not going to take shit anymore or from anybody. My fear of man left me and this experience gave me a strange sense of empowerment and courage that I never had known before. Unknown to me, I would use this new courage at my next Zone Conference.


THE DROOLING ANGRY MISSION PRESIDENT
Four months before I was to go home, at a Zone Conference, I had the usual interview with the MP as every missionary did. But as the usual “blame the Elder” one sided interview commenced, the MP became unusually hateful and vindictive toward me because this time he stood up from behind the desk and proceeded to yell into my face saying 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 report. Every Zone conference always produced a similar tirade from him but this time was the last straw for me with this GA-wannabe pin head.

Too many times did I sit through similar interviews and said nothing, but now, with my new found courage, I fired back at him. I stood up from my chair, leaned over the desk and yelled back into his face, using several colorful metaphors in the process, that he was a fucking failure of a mission president for blaming me about things that I had no control over. 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 armpit of a place, he should pack his bags, take his clueless wife and his dumb-ass children, and get the hell out of our lives. 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 did not 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. As I turned toward the door and began to walk out, my last words to him were that I would never speak to him again for any reason. I then walked out of the room, left him with his puddle of drool, and I never did speak to him again for the remainder of my mission.

After that heated exchange, I went outside the church building for the remainder of the Zone Conference to calm myself down. For the next 3 hours, I fed two squirrels from a jar of Planters Peanuts. That was the last time I ever took lip from him or his assistants again.

That day, any belief I had of the divinity of the Mormon Church and any belief that God cared about me ended. I now saw with high clarity that the whole Mormon Church was a bowl of excrement and that I had been swindled out of two years of my life, tricked into laying on the fools “Alter of Forfeit” my girl, 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? I did not know at that moment.

I decided to finish the mission and my only reason was 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 to go through but my thoughts and desires of suicide slowly evaporated. I knew I was going home soon and Kathy was still there.

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 coming fast but not fast enough. I just did the mechanics of the job for the remaining 16 weeks.

Hoo-Boy, on the suck scale your mishie experience rates a 10. It's very sad to think of the thousands now going through similar nasty times. Hopefully, many will figure out the truth like you did.

I entered the empty sea in 1983 and it was more of the same then. I watched an elder get ripped apart for wearing a suit jacket that didn't match his pants. I watched an instructor play pranks on the new arrivals and take great delight in reducing them to tears on multiple occasions. There was a constant feeling that Big Brother was watching and just waiting. It was a freaking prison and the guards were constantly running us down and reminding us who was in charge with their malicious little swipes.

One Sunday I was assigned to give a talk in Branch Meeting. I gave a talk about trying to focus on Christ-like attitudes and actions. As an example I related an experience in the dorm room from the previous week. One group of Elders had a Nerf basketball hoop above their door and were playing around before bed time. Well the Elders below came up and wanted to rumble over having their study time interrupted by all the thumping from above. I suggested that soft answers might turn away wrath and some other New Testament ideas.

After I sat down Elder Dennis, the branch president, stood up and preempted the program with a major ass reaming. He went on an on about how the dormitories were sacred and holy. They were consecrated buildings and it was absolute sacrilege to even consider having any fun in one of them. It was surreal to watch this guy come unglued. We all just kind of sat there looking at each other. After the meeting we were all a little stunned but we were smart enough to agree that everything we said in front the Jerk would be filtered from then on.

I ran into that Dennis guy as Portuguese instructor at BYU after my mission. He was still an ass. Did anybody else have any experiences with that guy?

This makes me wonder exactly what my step son put up with, that he's never talked about.

He was in Kaoshiung Taiwan about 2005/2006.

I would really like to know what we unknowingly let him sign up for. Him going on a mission was all his idea. We never put pressure on any of our kids to do the mormon thing. He really wanted to go. He's never, ever said one single negative thing. I have to wonder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2012 12:16AM by Mia.

Having read this account and the account of your last day in old Virginny, the impression I was left with is that you are a man of some stature. How tall are you, and how did that compare with the MP and the "person" who was trying to withhold your ticket to freedom on the last day?

I am a little over 6' 2" tall and at the time I was going home I was about 200 pounds. The office elder AP spouting off to me was about 5' 4" and probably about 130 pounds. He was a rude & arrogant Idaho boy that was in need of a serious attitude adjustment.

The MP was about 5' 9". If you picture in your mind the actor Peter Falk playing the character "Columbo" in that old TV series, that would be a good reference. The MP looked like Falk and walked and talked in a similar fashion. But the MP had a much meaner disposition. All he cared about were numbers and he always acted as if being there was a great inconvienence to him. Thats why I told him he should pack up and leave if he cant do the job.

Thank you.

Awesome story, here is the "Last Day" post

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,472674