OK, so obviously, had I known then what I know now, I wouldn't have served a mission, or I would have asked to be sent home.

But, what are some of the obedient things that I did consistently that I wish I just slacked off on?

- Waking up at 6:30AM every day even on P-day
- If at 8PM it was dark out and had absolutely nothing to do, instead of just calling it a night and going home, we'd go bang on doors
- I had one sub-obedient companion who when I went to the area, took me on weekly p-day trips (in regular clothes) to visit a family to just socialize, had 2 really hot girls living there that we just socialized with, along with their parents (no sinning was done though). No discussion of gospel. When my comp got transferred, I stopped those visits because I felt it wasn't necessary even though I loved hanging out with them
- We skipped our 1 hour dinner break to allow for more proselytizing time
- We taught a few different investigators on p-day if it worked better for them, considered it sacrifice and felt we earned browny points with god for doing it
- Missions are about numbers, so we taught as many discussions as possible to as many people as possible, mainly so we could report big numbers to the MP so he'd be proud of us
- Memorized word for word all 6 missionary discussions and all the scriptures referenced in the discussions
- Controlled my thoughts, leaving out all "impurities" in an effort to have spiritual promptings all the time (which turned out in the end to have no positive effect on end results)

That and much more. Any thoughts from other RM's that were either too damn obedient, or perhaps, those that I wish I was like, and had little regard for all those stupid rules?

I was obedient to the point of appearing obsessive-compulsive.

It never helped the way I felt inside for the entire Two Worst Years of My Life.

If you hate your mission, it's because you are not working hard enough and are not obedient enough. That pushes you to be more obedient and work harder, but then you get more miserable. You keep thinking, if I only do better, then I will finally be happy.

The medicine they prescribe is toxic, and making you feel guilty because it isn't working only makes it worse.

During one of the most exhausting periods of my mission I decided to wake up at 6:00 instead of 6:30 to get in extra study time and prove my faith to the Lord. Of course things only got much worse. I only ever slept in past 6:30 once (by accident, and after attending my only midnight mass). It felt divine, despite the guilt that was laced throughout.

At least half my mission was spent trying not to fall asleep. I was so sleep-deprived during those 17,500 hours.

Obedience is never a virtue, except in cults and totalitarian regimes.

Mormonism needs naive and pliable people who will breed more such people, in order to keep more money coming in.

I think I woke up on time maybe 6 days total once I was in the mission field. In the MTC it was probably the same, but I don't think I missed breakfast very often. As for the daily, personal study time, forget that. I've just never been a morning person and being on a mission didn't magically change that.

However, I wasn't a total "blow it" missionary. Like you, I memorized and passed off all the discussions. We reported good numbers as well, but any time we managed to chat for more than 5 minutes on a door approach that was considered a full first discussion.

It seems like I just never got very excited about the whole thing. It was drudgery day after day. Some companions were real sickle thrusters and that sucked. Even with the cool companions it was still a mission. We broke many of the rules and I once got busted for taking the entire district out of our areas without permission(rebel district leader). The best rule breakage was the time a lovely young lady grabbed me and sucked my face. At the time I was horrified that I didn't stop her sooner than I did. It was probably 15 seconds but it felt like an eternity of the best, most intimate kiss of my life.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to be back on my mission as a total non believer. I probably wouldn't last long because there is no way in hell I'd put up with the BS from the MP. But for a while at least there are a lot of things I'd see and do.

Hah, I'd love to try that, have another comp just like me, non-believer, and totally suck the MP along. Tell him how much we're loving the work, teaching tons of discussions, all the meanwhile going out with girls, separating from each other, movies, music, living a good fun life. Then just be a good actor any time I speak with or see the MP or other missionaries.

There were so many cool people that I couldn't really get to know because Mormonism prevented it. As a missionary the default position is that these people were broken and the cult was the only way to fix them. How wrong.

hmmmmmm....well you may not like my comment but like always it's the truth so I'll share it. I can't really remember if I did or did not obey all the little rules like the ones mentioned herein, getting up in the morning etc....but I can tell you this as much as being part of the cult has screwed me up as a human being .....with that said, I can tell you that looking back on it now, I still think that having served a mission AT LEAST FOR ME....had more positives than negatives. That has nothing to do with RELIGION, as we all know on this site, Mormonism is clearly a cult and a very powerful one at that, but setting that little detail aside, when you are 19 years old and you spend two years talking to strangers, taking on responsibilities learning how to work and sacrifice of your time for others etc....all those things and many more that I could mention I feel gave me a GREAT head start over other people who did not have such experiences as I did serving a mission. Being able to speak in front of a crowd, being able to think and reason, EVEN THOUGH THE THINKING AND REASONING WAS ONLY REFERENCING CULT TEACHINGS...but still being able to do that on the fly with strangers....learning not to be afraid to try and do things learning not to be afraid of strangers and learning to take responsibility for yourself at age 19, learning to cook, clean, keep a schedule learning to set goals and work to achieve them and learning to make reports and learning to take responsibility for your actions, both accomplishment and failures...all of those things are good things to have under your belt to use the rest of your life. Now as I said, everything I was selling was a load of Crap...but since then I have sold other things....like for example Digital Pianos and keyboards in Music stores etc and I found I was what they called a "Silver Tongue natural born salesman and to be honest I credit my time serving a mission for that skill that I still have today. I'm a great debater to this day and though if I had it to do all over again I would NEVER NEVER NEVER HAVE BEEN PART OF THE LDS CHURCH PERIOD but since I was born in it and into an active family I didn't really have that choice so I'm just saying, that though they screwed me royally mentally and basically ruined my life, there were some good things I got out of it....does that make any sense to anyone?

Perfect sense. And I agree. I've always felt that my mission made me a better person. I think it made me less defensive, more willing and able to listen to another person's argument against me, humility etc. And learning a new language was a big plus for me. I've never until very recently started to explore some of the other aspects of the mission. You see, before I never thought that what I was doing was attempting to expand a cult and falsities of the church's teachings. It's a weird balance though, because yes, I did improve many things about myself and learned new skills, but I'm sure there are other better ways to go about doing that. Ways that don't include spreading lies. My mind has certainly been opened recently to a whole new perspective. I still have a tough time coming out and saying I all out regret my mission, because I don't know if I do at this point. I kind of do, but I'm glad I learned some of the things that I learned.

You are not paying tithing, you are out of it.
Hell, most of us wasted out times with stupidities; I had to go to a compulsory Military service for a worthless country which wiped out my ancestors....
I'm out of there alive, that's what matters....
Another day to live........

I kept most of the rules, but I considered them mostly as guidelines and kept to the spirit of the law. In the end I enjoyed most of my mission. I had many girls offer to be the mother of my childern. I served in Argentina and the women there are beautiful and agressive. They also greet with a kiss on the cheek (also done on special occassions or to congratulate someone), which the missionaries are not supposed to do. On my birthday my companion told everyone it was my birthday and it became somewhat of a game to see how many kisses I could get. One of the best birthday's ever.
One of my favorite rule breaking though was as a district leader we left the zone to play football with the AP's and office elders. It was good fun. The best part came when the zone leader found out that I left my district and the zone without his permission. He was an @$$ and was super pissed off that I had not talked to him. I loved that he was all bent up when I was with the AP's.

My extreme obedience helped numb the awfulness that the mission really was. The extreme obedience and fulfilling my duty helped block out what was really happening. The extreme obedience helped me shut down who I really was which was necessary to get through it.

I was kind of the exact opposite of you!

-Woke up at 7:00 (at the earliest) because I never exercised anyway
-Always took a least an hour for lunch and dinner. I used their own rule book against ultra-obedient companions who wanted to skip it!
-Never scheduled an appointment on p-day, if it could be done any other time
-Left my area plenty of times for p-day trips to see cool things outside the area
-I knew the lessons well enough to teach them, but I never memorized anything. I did have some go-to scripture references to emphasize various points, though
-I would continue visiting people who were never going to join the church if I liked hanging out with them. Often without ever mentioning Mormonism during the visit.
-One of my companions even had a DVD player and we would just watch movies we'd borrow from a less-active family if we didn't have anything else to do.
-One apartment had some non-approved books (including the whole Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which I probably read at least 5 times) and a few board games hidden up in the attic.
-We played video games with a few people

Basically I was just about as disobedient as a missionary can be, without doing anything serious enough to get yelled at about. As a result, I had a pretty good time on my mission. I would certainly not call it the "best two years" of my life! It was down right miserable quite a lot of the time! But I think I had a much more enjoyable experience then most missionaries. I met some great people, had some cool experiences, and saw lots of neat stuff in another country. It was a good experience for me, since I am a very quiet person, my mission helped me learn how to interact with people much better. It also taught me how to stand up to Mormon dogma and be myself, in spite of the church. It also gave me some of my first doubts about the truthfulness of the church, especially on the "inspired" decisions made by priesthood leaders. Most of my other doubts came from my time at BYU! Lol!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2012 12:33PM by nickname.

I thought this link would be appreciated by many who are interested in this thread. Hope some enjoy it at least!

http://lifeaccordingtorandy.com/Trunky%20view.html

If somehow my consciousnesses got sent back in time, into the head of my 19 year old missionary self, I would not ask to go home, I would simply do it.

And it would have been a lot easier to do that in San Diego than say, Mongolia. At one point on my mission I was SOOOO close to calling an exmo relative in St. George and asking him to come get me. It would have been a great "in your face" to the MP and my d-bag ZL, but in retrospect I'm glad I didn't because it would have opened up way more cans of worms back home than I could have handled.

Does anyone feel that parents share some blame here for authoritatively commanding/suggesting that young people waste some of the best time in their lives selling for the LDS corporation?

I've considered asking my parents, did you guys have any idea about any of the stuff that I've learned about the church that has caused me to leave? If not, were you ever presented with the opportunity to learn about it?

I don't want to fault them though, because they were doing what they felt was right.