Mission Nightmares

[_ajax18]

Yeah Nehor I still have that dream.

Yeah, I suffered from the dream of being recalled to my mission a lot. I can't believe they wanted me back, but they did. I finally told Salt Lake in the dream that I just wasn't going to go back to the mission. I'm not sure if we can sin in dreams or not, but I guess it's on my record now. I haven't had the dream since.

Maybe that's why they wait until people are old to ask them to go again. It might take that long to get over what happened on my mission.

[_Jason Bourne]

I have had dreams that I am either back on my mission or serving a second one. None of them trouble me much and that is likely because I still view my mission as a relatively positive experience. But there is one aspect of the one where I am on a second one that troubles me. That is I am married and have a family and I have to leave them. I note that I miss them and long for them horribly while I am away from them.

[Guest]

I can only recall the "second-mission" dream occurring twice but it seems very similar to what you describe, Runtu. I didn't serve in anything like you described in Bolivia. In fact, in Switzerland and Germany where I served there were areas where an average day was spent knocking on doors along entire streets with at least one Porsche or other European sports car in the garage. Owning a home was a sign of affluence in itself. To really see poverty we spent time with the refugees from the Croatian wars, the Africans, the people from South America, the Sri Lankans...people with horror stories to tell of friends and family killed or held hostage. But I always went home to a decent apartment with hot water and good food each night. So that might play into it in some way.

I do have the college dream Nehor described. My variation is that it usually begins just past the drop deadline and I completely forgot that I was signed up for a class and have not been attending it. So I am panicked in trying to figure out a way to get caught up and get a good grade so it doesn't kill my GPA. I hate that dream.

But my most common dream of this type are dreams of being called back to the military. Missionary dream, x100 for me. That sounds the most similar to what you describe and the relief I feel when I wake up and realize it is a dream is immeasurable. Which is interesting. Other than posting on the boards, Mormonism has almost no place in my day-to-day life. My TBM family is back in Utah and when we talk the church is not a topic of conversation for us. Other than on the boards, my only sense of being LDS is in trying to work out how to be a gentile in a gentile world. I wonder if that plays into it in anyway?

[_honorentheos]

But there is one aspect of the one where I am on a second one that troubles me. That is I am married and have a family and I have to leave them. I note that I miss them and long for them horribly while I am away from them.

Sounds like being deployed. Only for real. Maybe that is why I have the military dream rather than the mission dream? Interesting.

[_ajax18]

You, too, huh? I never understood why they took our passports. At the time I thought it must be for safe-keeping.

If I hadn't been through it myself, it'd be easy to say this is all heresay. But I know elders in my mission who asked to leave repeatedly, like over many months, and they just wouldn't let them. He asked if his parents could sell his truck to pay for his flight home. This was when he had only a month in the country. Then they replied, "Your parents can't do that for you." He told me at our reunion that they finally agreed around the 18 month mark to let him leave two months early if he would stop asking to go home. He was American but it was even more common with Latino missionaries. I had one Latino companion who actually wanted to be there less than me. But no matter how bad the things were that he did, they wouldn't send him home because his family would not pay for the ticket. The MP always bragged he was going to send him home on foot. But he didn't and I still had to have him as a companion.

I think the worst affliction I carried home was not the bacteria but the spiritual sickness that resulted from seeing a different side of the church. I had a companion who had his bags all packed and was supposed to fly out the next day. The office messed up his flight plans (I suspect purposefully) The office missionaries said it was a punishment from God for him being so trunky. The Church policy was firm on cases of botched tickets. The missionary has no choice but to extend his mission another month and a half. They were constantly pulling stuff to try to make people stay longer. We'll make you zone leader if you stay. etc. etc. And more and more missionaries became to determined to obtain honorable releases sooner.

[_ajax18]

Sounds like being deployed. Only for real. Maybe that is why I have the military dream rather than the mission dream? Interesting.

I really respect what you guys endure. I've only known one man personally who served both as a missionary and in Iraq. He seriously considered going to Canada when he got back on American soil. Is it the conditions of being at war that are worse, or is it the political BS of the military and how they treat people that are worse? I know that sounds like a weird question. Sometimes the mission was not so bad when I was far away from the mission office and I had a companion I liked. We were still eating garbage and shaking hands with people who had contagious warts but we weren't being harangued by the leadership for lack of baptisms. Sometimes I even felt close to God and happy to be in his service, but those far away areas were taken away from me after I got sick. Good bye hotland, hello perpetually overcast mountain top city slums.

[_Rich Rasmussen]

When I first got home I had dreams that I was serving again but was filled with great joy and honor within my dream, and sadness when awoken. I slowly started to become more anxious within my dream and then relieved to be revived.
My latest second mission dream had a change from my being upset and anxious...I served in all the same areas and undid what converting I had done. I woke from that a bit uneasy.

[_ajax18]

My latest second mission dream had a change from my being upset and anxious...I served in all the same areas and undid what converting I had done. I woke from that a bit uneasy.

Whoa, how long were you asleep?

[_3sheets2thewind]

yes, i have back on mission dreams. I don't consider them nightmares, but I also don't like the feeling I have in the dream of realizing I am single again and back on a mission. my the dreams would be different if I dream about being a missionary with my wife.

[_Eyepatch]

I've had the nightmares as well...and I use the word NIGHTMARE in its true sense. The dream itself is like a slow-motion drag through the mud. I'm back in Germany, having been sent back due to some flimsy, vague administrative excuse, like, "We've sent you back to finish up." In the dream I'm FILLED WITH DREAD, wondering if just killing myself might be a more attractive option. The sense of relief upon waking up from the dream is hard to describe...but it was similar to the feeling I had when I was finally flying home from my mission.

I served in '87-'89 and had the dream off and on again for about 10 years. I haven't had the dream in a long time, and I think it's due to my crystal-clear knowledge that the church is full of crap.