I was there during the infamous Orson Wright regime. Saw him leave and had TSM give all the missionaries a pep talk. (I heard however, that he gave the assts. holy hell for not turning him in sooner)all in all, one of the worst experiences of my life.
Hey Urban, I was in Melbourne '79 to '81, a couple of elders in our mtc{ Jan. '79} district went to Sydney. Six of us went on to Melbourne. We met up again at the New Zealand Temple on the way home. I'm the guy who went swimming in Hawaii! I quit the Church when the plane landed in California.
wow! I had no idea about that incident! I DID hear about the elder sent home for getting caught painting a woman's toenails...although I suspect this was an urban legend.
I was there in 1983-1984. I served an 18 month mission with President Watts. In my TBM days, I really liked him. I did hear rumors about the Orson Wright episode, but the member who seemed to know the most wouldn't go into details.
What I heard most was how bad it was when Loren C. Dunn was president. I guess he was very into numbers and put a lot of pressure on the missionaries to tract long hours and be extra pushy.
I was in Australia from Dec 89' to Dec 91'. First area was Dubbo, then Taree, Maitland, Orange, Canberra and a couple other areas I don't remember. Good place to go.
I was in the mission the same time as you 1983 - 1985. I served in Ryde, Taree, Newcastle, and Parramatta. I left the church in 1991. I agree I heard horror stories about Dunn and Wright. The Aussies took it out on us missionaries. During the infamous era they had Day of Pentecost discussions where people were baptised after one meeting. I also heard that Dunn and Wright were cousins and were in a competition to see who could baptize more people.
I started out under Nielsen in 92 and then it split and then I was under Pace until 94. I was in Mascot, Hurstville, Penrith, Hornsby, Newcastle, Armidale, Mosman, and St Marys.
If my memory serves me correctly I was trained by a guy from Kansas. He was a roofer by trade before his mission. Thomas Mundy I think. Mascot was his last area.
Mundy was a companion of mine too! Mascot was also my last area, but I was there august-november and trained a guy from Spanish Ferk. ....I suspected you couldn't be him...that guy was aiming for general authority.
That's true, I did have two wet dreams during the LA-Sydney flight. Can you believe that? It wasn't fun having to clean cum out of my Gs twice in an airplane lavatory. I'm an old guy now so I don't have them nearly as often. There were a few times I'd go through a weeks worth of underwear in two nights sleep. Elder Baird called me 'Spurticles'.
I knew that they had spent part of their mission there, but for some reason I thought that Adelaide & some other places that were in were in the same mission as Melbourne.
Not Sydney but Australia Melbourne 1976-1978...Italian Language Elder.
Served under John Convey and Bruce Mitchell.
There were 12 of us at the time and we were a seperate zone unto ourselves. We covered the entire Melbourne metropolitan area and surrounding suburbs on foot, bike and train.
While I was there there was also 10 Spanish speaking missionaries as well.
You would have served with my ex husband. He is a total moron and was known as one on his mission. He served with the guy who got engaged on his mission and his wedding announcement was a pic of him and the girl infront of the bridge taken on his mission.
served with parton also saw him over here in salt lake three years ago and had dinner at the joseph smith memorial building with a few others from the ASNM have never told him that i have been out of the church since 98 i served 95-97
we visited him in his flat in fairfield, me (a girl) and a guy friend. then we went to another comps place and they trashed the joint. and left the most disgusting present in the shower!