Mission Stories

[_Dr Exiled]

Very compelling Jonah. It's sad how money gets in the way, but it almost always does.

[_Chuck Finley]

Here's one of many. I loved my mission to northern Germany. I'm actually typing this in my hotel in Tucson right now, at a conference for German teachers near the UofA.

Did you become a German teacher because of your mission experience?

[_Jonah]

Thank you all for your kind words. I have had a life full of different experiences. Unfortunately, a great number (too great) are experiences I could have done without. I totally agree with Runtu, and I have preached for quite some time, that life is way to short to deal with toxic relationships. Family does not get a free pass.

I knew early in my life that my family was “different”…far from the loving examples I had seen from my friends’ lives. I remember as a youngster in church cringing during those Mother’s Day programs having to sing, “Mother dear I love you so…”. I remember one year not singing. I remember being beaten at home afterwards for not doing so. After that…I just mouthed the words. My father used to like to preach, “I don’t believe you should tell your children often that you love them.” He certainly lived by those words. I remember once later in life, telling him that I loved him and giving him a big hug. While doing so I felt something in my abdomen area. It was his arm. It had been caught between us during the hug. He was using it to push me away.

One of the first RED FLAGS I had when it came to Mormonism was as a child being taught in Primary that I chose my parents in the pre-existence. At that young age I KNEW that was B.S., and then started wondering what else I was being taught that wasn’t true.

I probably should be way more screwed up in the head than I am. I credit not being so to looking at the various situations I faced growing up, saying at the time, “I won’t be doing THAT when I grow up and get older”, and using those experiences as “what not to do” guides in my life. I turned out O.K. I’m a good person. I like me…nawwww…I LOVE me. My mother once told me that I turned out to be so good BECAUSE of the beatings she gave me as a youngster. Amazing. That’s messed up. No mother…I turned out to be a good guy IN SPITE of the beatings you gave me. **SIGH**, If Mormon heaven turns out to be true and we are reunited with our families in the hereafter…I cannot think of a greater HELL. If when my time comes and my family is at the “pearly gates” to meet me…they will be met with my “perfected” middle finger.

Back to missionary stuff. And Chuck, I am really, really sorry if I derailed your thread. I too LOVE to hear missionary stories and I have an incredibly soft spot for them. After this post I’ll write a “missionary story” post for you.

As I have mentioned before, I have toyed with the idea of making a documentary telling my story of being an early returned missionary, as well as telling the stories of others who may have had it worse than I. Some days I am really high on doing the project, other times I feel like just letting it be. It would be fun though to document a high ranking church official turning me down for comment on film. I don’t know, we’ll see. Here is a link to a very rough cut (I’m no pro at this) of what would probably be the intro to my documentary. I may have posted this before but I don’t remember. When prompted for the password, type in Jonah. Enjoy.

https://vimeo.com/265904125

[_moinmoin]

Did you become a German teacher because of your mission experience?

That was the major factor. Not out of the gates, though. I taught English and science for 13 years prior (I'm in my third year of German). Had I known what I know now, I would have started out with that. It's very fun, you have an automatically better set of students (because they chose the class, overwhelmingly because they're excited about it. It makes a big difference), and you are largely your own boss in your own fiefdom (sole responsibility for tests and content).

I was actually recruited away from middle school science to open it up at the high school, or I would probably still be over there. It's crazy to me now that the thought might not have occurred to me without the invite. Since I already have a certificate, I just needed to pass the NES test in German, and the test was a blast. Five hours, tight security (I was palm-scanned three times and put in a small room with closed circuit cameras), and everything: essays, reading tests (that would have been difficult in English, as it had multiple answers that were "right" so you had to find the answer that was most correct), speaking (audio prompts and recorded response), history and culture test, and listening. While it was a lot of fun, it was difficult, and I thought it was too bad because many decently qualified people (with, say, a bachelors in German or German Studies and decent command of the language) would struggle on it. The dialect and eclectic nature of much of it almost demands that one have spent a long time immersed in it. There were recordings in dialect or that used slang that would only be familiar to someone who lived there.

I know a lot more about history in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland than I did before I started teaching it, and I have bought a lot of joke books, novels, and other things since then.

[_Jonah]

I don’t have many personal missionary stories because I was only in the MTC for five weeks. I don’t know if they still do it, but back in the day there was a special missionary experience in the temple where some sort of church official would meet with the missionaries after a session and answer any questions they had concerning the church. I can’t imagine them still doing this. With all of the information available at our fingertips today about the church, it’s history, and it’s policies, I could imagine some pretty dicey questions being thrown at that church official. Anyway, I remember about five minutes of my time during this question/answer session in the temple. I slept the rest of the time.

As I mentioned before, I have a HUGE soft spot for missionaries. From my experience, I know that many of these kids would rather be doing something else with their lives. Through pressure, obligation, fear, family, girlfriend, whatever…many are stuck for two years and counting the days.

In years past, when missionaries would knock on my door, I would invite them in and then proceed to bash with them. I would “throw the book” at them in an effort to sway them. Then one time as I was ripping their religion, I noticed one of them looking back at me with a totally blank expression. I then realized that everything I was saying to him was hitting him in the forehead and dropping to the floor. It was then that I realized that instead of trying to change them, I needed to befriend them. They were human beings…kids…way more than they were tools of the church or members of “God’s Army”.

From that point on I decided to make my home a welcoming place for missionaries. A place where they could come, relax, be welcomed and loved, and more importantly a place where they could be themselves for a little bit. When they would drop by I laid out some parameters for them being able to stay. I told them that since it would be impossible for me to have a testimony of Joseph Smith, nothing else really mattered, so it would be useless to try to “teach” me anything. I shared with them my experiences in the church and my short mission experience. I explained that when it came time for them to leave there would be no prayers in my house so don’t offer. I also told them that if they tried to “convert me”, I would try to “de-convert” them…and I was better armed.

I was able to turn their visits into something REAL. We talked about all kinds of things non-Mormon related, where they came from, why were they there, their families, schooling, girlfriends, their future plans and goals, etc. We talked about life. I discovered that as they came to trust me they became more open with me, at times revealing perhaps things they shouldn’t have. Every now and then, when I could relate it to a topic we were discussing, I would sneak in something from the CES letter or the church essays just to tweak them a little…plant the seed. My goal was that when it came time for them to leave, they would do so shaking their heads and saying, “Oh my heck…Bro. Jonah sure would be a great Bishop”. LOL!!!

If they dropped by during the day I would give them a bottled water to battle the heat. If they dropped by around dinner time, I would cook for them or take them out to eat. I made sure they knew that if they didn’t have a dinner appointment with some ward member, they could always drop by my place and be fed. One fun experience I had was being at the grocery store not long ago on a Monday night around 5:00 pm. I happened to see the missionaries shopping so I waited until they headed to the check out line, got behind them, and told the cashier that I would pay for their groceries. They were in shock. They were waiting for me after I checked out. They thanked me, and I told them that I was NOT some answer to a prayer of theirs, or their latest “faith promoting experience”...far, far, far, from it. I paid for their groceries because…well…that’s just the way I roll. I told them to be safe and to use the money they saved on a good meal or something fun. The looks on their faces as I walked away of relief, joy, confusion, etc. was well worth it.

I haven’t had the missionaries drop by in some time now. According to my son (who has gone on splits with them and taken them out to dinner), my house has been “blacklisted”. It seems that word got out a while back about a time I had two missionaries from Utah over at my house for a dinner of grilled rib eyes. By coincidence, the Utah Jazz just happened to be in the NBA Playoffs and on TV. Not wanting to offend their host, the missionaries had to suffer through the Jazz game with me. The whole game. So now my place is blacklisted.

I hope someday to get some fresh, green, unknowing missionaries to knock on my door again. I enjoy my discussions with them. The mission home for my area is only a few blocks from my house. In the past I have felt honored when a few missionaries who were transitioning out for their journeys home have made the effort to drop by one last time before leaving to say their thanks and goodbyes. Very satisfying. Very heartwarming. Very touching.

[_Flaming Meaux]

I was part of an emergency transfer where I received a companion who was being "midnight transferred" (i.e., transferred in the middle of a transfer cycle) from another area in the mission because of some girl problems. I was supposed to be his reformer, or at least try to keep him away from the girls in the ward in which I was serving. It wasn't necessarily like he was a creepy predator or anything--he just tended to be overly flirtatious with the 16-18 year old girls, and the girls tended to be likely to reciprocate with any missionary willing to show a sufficient amount of attention as the area was generally short on any other Mormon men they might meet.

I knew him, though not well, from serving in the same zone at an earlier point in my mission, and his reputation proceeded him via mission gossip. One of the first things he said to me as we started our companionship together was, "I really need your help. I don't know what it is, but all the women just want me." He wasn't particularly keen on actually doing missionary work (and tended to be 'sick' most of the time, or at least sick enough to avoid tracting), but my directive was to essentially keep him from embarrassing himself with the local ward and to put up with just about anything else. As I did missionary work primarily out of duty rather than because I actually liked it, I didn't mind having more time in the apartment to just study and I also didn't mind spending significantly less time tracting.

Anyway, fast forward a couple weeks and we are together with another group of missionaries hanging out on a preparation day. My companion is bragging about his skill with the ladies and we are teasing him about only being successful with 16-18 year olds and that he doesn't have what it takes to actually get a girl his own age. "Oh yeah?" he asks. He then goes into his bedroom and produces a collection of letters that he and one of the sister missionaries in the mission had been exchanging surreptitiously. She was apparently quite taken with him and a few of her letters consisted principally of erotic poetry she had written about the two of them. Fairly cheesy stuff, not something that was going to win any awards or critical acclaim--but I still remember the line about how she imagined them "lying together naked in the dark, as your hand passes over my breast."

While it all just seems silly now, it seemed a very serious matter for an Elder to possess such "pornography," so we convinced him to burn all of the letters and pictures he and this particular sister had been exchanging. I recall burning it all inside the apartment in a small little pan--not sure why we didn't at least take it outside.

The next morning, there was a message on the phone from the Mission President asking us to report directly to the mission headquarters. "What do you think he would be calling about?" asked my companion. As one of the missionaries present for the reading of the letters had been a zone leader, I thought the answer was obvious. It turns out that he and this particular sister missionary were scheduled to go home on the same transfer, and the Mission President thought it wise that they not actually be together in the mission home or on the flights home. My companion was only about two transfers away from leaving anyway, so the mission president indicated that he would be leaving on the next transfer. Then, on reflection, since my companion wasn't much of a worker anyway, the mission president just decided to transfer him home immediately (though he still received an honorable release, so kudos to the mission president for not completely destroying his post-mission standing for exchanging a little erotica via letters). Since my companion was returning to Hawaii, my mission president indicated he would be leaving early because the church wanted to save a little money by not sending him home during the peak travel season to Hawaii.

I wonder if he and his mission flame ever connected after the fact?

[_Chuck Finley]

Mission stories, you say? How about I up the ante just a little and give you. . .

My entire mission?

Front to back, introduction to epilogue, Day 1 to Day 773, it's all here:

Elder Shades's Missionary Journal

Wow! Anything specific to which you’d refer interested readers?

[_esodije]

My favorite mission story comes from my very first time tracting in Santiago without my trainer companion, having gone out to knock doors with a young man from the ward. My Spanish was still shaky, with me being only about a month removed from the MTC. Anyway, our standard door approach (particularly ineffective, even sexist, in retrospect), if a woman answered the door, started with “Buscamos al dueño de casa” (“We’re looking for the owner [i.e., man] of the house”). At one house, an older lady responded to my inquiry by saying,”Falleció.” I had no idea at the time what “fallecer” meant—she was telling me her husband had died—so I cheerfully asked, “¿A qué hora vuelve?” (“What time will he be back?”) Needless to say, that produced a befuddled look from the lady and a nudge in the ribs from my “local” companion, who hurriedly whispered something I did understand: “¡Está muerto!” (“He’s dead!”) I’m sure I turned six shades of red!

[_Chuck Finley]

Back to missionary stuff. And Chuck, I am really, really sorry if I derailed your thread. I too LOVE to hear missionary stories and I have an incredibly soft spot for them. After this post I’ll write a “missionary story” post for you.

No derail in my opinion. It’s all flowing from your original contribution, so what is there to complain about? As you can see from everyone else interacting with you, you’re obviously meeting the intent of the thread. Thanks for sharing so much.

[_Dr. Shades]

Elder Shades's Missionary Journal

Wow! Anything specific to which you’d refer interested readers?

Sure. I'd say my most meaningful experiences took place on Days 398, 724, 728, and 773. Just click "Ctrl+F" and enter those numbers in the pop-up search field.

Otherwise, scroll through until you see large blocks of bolded text; those contain my lengthiest instances of retroactive commentary--typically my criticisms of mission culture.