Mission Stories

[_Chuck Finley]

One of my favorite threads on postmormon.org, back when it was operational, was dedicated to Mission Stories. It was a wonderful catch-all where folks shared their tales and recalled their adventures. I’ve not seen that thread replicated here. So if it exists, someone please let me know.

Assuming such a thread doesn’t exist, I would like to start this thread for your mission stories. I’d love to hear the misadventures that will have me rolling with laughter. Perhaps you could share a story that particularly touches you, even to this day. It would also be interesting to hear how some of you served in the same missions, but maybe decades apart.

The great thing about such a thread is that literally any returned missionary has something he or she can share. If you are still a TBM today, you could share not just how the experience maybe strengthened your faith, but also share in relating the ridiculous experiences you had, those encounters that make people of any faith persuasion shake their head! Similarly, even the most ardent exMo might be able to share a tender moment from what overall might have been a miserable two-year (or longer) stint that cemented your exit. You steady RM lurkers out there surely have something valuable to contribute, so I hope you do as well.

As so many of you have said, Mormonism is the tribe or culture that binds you, for better or for worse. For many of you, a mission (no matter how long or how short for whatever reason) is another specific shared experience within the culture. I hope you’ll extend to me the privilege of reading your stories as you recount them here.

[_moinmoin]

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.

My final area was Braunschweig, a city of a quarter million people. Most of my mission was small villages and branches, so this was my big city with a ward (I also served in the Bielefeld ward, which was a super-active ward rivaling strong American wards). I wasn't jazzed about a big city, preferring door-to-door, but ended up really liking it. It ranked third on my favorite city list, behind Halberstadt (former East Germany) and Oldenburg.

Almost in the closing weeks of my mission, we returned to the apartment after our weekly slaughterfest with Schwester Dubowski. We had to eat everything on the table, and it was an insane amount of food, topped off with what we called the "incredible expanding cake." Every Thursday. We were sick. As we went into the apartment to lie down, use the restroom, etc., the phone was ringing. We let the answering machine get it, because we didn't want to answer the phone when we weren't supposed to be there. A bright girl's voice said, in American English, "My name is ________, and I have been reading the Book of Mormon and want to be baptized." She left her number, and we called it. She was a foreign exchange student from Colorado. Her host family was very not friendly towards Mormons, and they were very suspicious. The host father told us that meeting with her was out of the question, he was responsible for her safety, etc. He did let us talk to her. I forget how exactly we did this, but we arranged to meet her at a town near hers at the train station. This turned out to be a challenge, because it wasn't clear whether her town or the one we were meeting her in was actually in our mission (it turns out that neither was). We met her at the Helmstedt train station, and she was actually very pretty. We walked and found a schoolyard and sat in the far corner and talked. She was miserable with culture shock and her host family. As she was packing to leave, her mother found the Book of Mormon her boyfriend had given her (he was at BYU while she was on her exchange), and freaked out at her. They had an argument, and she insisted that she was going to bring it.

Her host family took her to the French Riviera, and she continued being miserable. She read the Book of Mormon on the beach that week, felt the Spirit strongly, and decided to look up the nearest missionaries when they got home and call them. We ended up teaching her the first two discussions in depth, and she already knew and understood a lot. A teacher or administrator came over to us and asked her if we were bothering her (she was crying), and she said no, everything was fine. Are you sure? because I can call the police and get rid of these guys . . . No, really, they are fine and I want to be here with them. The adult went back into the school.

She told us she was scared, because she wanted to get baptized but she knew her parents would be furious. Aside from parental consent, I told her that I recommended that she wait until she got home and could talk in person to her parents. Putting ourselves in their shoes, you shouldn't do that to them, and how would you feel if your daughter made an important decision you didn't agree with when she was halfway around the world and you weren't there with her? This made her somewhat relieved. She was struggling with friends and culture at school, so we mentioned a church dance that was coming up (I think it was that Saturday). "My host parents would never let me go to that." Well, let me call them and see. They were not at all in favor of that, and when they insisted that they were responsible for her safety, I promised them that we would personally pick her up from the train station and personally see that she made it onto her return train (which at that time of night, ran, but not frequently. We would have to see that she made it, and it would be a late return home). I explained this, with the times, to her host father, and surprisingly, he agreed to let this happen.

We picked her up at the train station around 7:00 (probably earlier, since the dance probably started at 7:00), and took her via S-Bahn to the church. The youth were known quantities (they were really good), and they took her under their wing, practiced their English with her, and helped her have a good time. It didn't hurt that she was pretty, either. I want to say that we didn't get her on the train until after 11:00 PM, but she had a really good time at the dance, and it seemed like a weight had been lifted.

We then found out that not only wasn't she in our area, she wasn't in our mission. We told her about this, and got her set up to meet with the sister missionaries. Right before I went home, she sent us a card thanking us for helping her, stating that "for the first time in my life, my faith is clear," and asking if she could still come to us with questions (but that she was glad to be working with the sisters).

This was just an all-around good experience that involved some problem-solving, diplomacy, and "righteous" rule-breaking (curfew for a higher cause, because we had personally guaranteed that we would ensure that she made it). In hindsight, we should have had member families do it, but it's a good experience that is a fond memory for me.

[_moinmoin]

Here's another one that I'm a little embarrassed about (and my wife says, "Why did you do that? I can't believe you did that.").

When I was transferred to Oldenburg, we lived in a garden house in an elderly couple's backyard. They were functional alcoholics (we used to joke that you wouldn't measure their blood alcohol level, you would measure their alcohol blood level --- how much blood is in their alcohol). Vodka from dawn to dusk. He picked me up from the train station and drove just fine. I think if we went off of it, he wouldn't have been able to drive.

She doted over us, and this had so bothered the zone leader I had replaced (who had gone home), that he had convinced the mission president to get us a newer apartment. Several set of elders had also been throwing away the food she made us for quite some time, but I loved it. Greasy, but "meat and potatoes." She was a good cook, and I repaired some of the ill-will from some previous missionaries. They had flushed her food down the toilet, and when she called a plumber, he found . . . lots of her old food. She was deeply hurt by this, and I insisted (truthfully) that I liked her food. I assured her that we weren't flushing it down the toilet.

She was very proud to take us to her brother's Catholic funeral, and we spent the day as part of the family at the funeral, the dinner afterwards, etc. The family did not want us there, but Mutti was proud to have us and treated us as one of the family.

She was absolutely devastated when the move was finalized. I assured her that I had nothing to do with it, and if it were up to me, we would have stayed there. But, we moved to the brand new apartment. Hooking up the phone was delayed, and Sunday night came and no phone, and we had to get reports from the district leaders and report numbers to the APs. Outside the apartment was a payphone with a long line of people, and it was freezing cold (this was the winter that the Elbe froze over, and it was bitter cold out near Ost Friesland where we were, too), so I told my greenie to get the phone and put it in his backpack. We were going to take the bus and sneak quietly into the garden house, plug the phone in (I was sure that the hookup was still live), and handle our business. We were being quiet, but Mutti barged in, saw us, and demanded to know what we were doing there. I told her very sheepishly that the new place didn't have phone service yet, and we were trying to get our reports done. She said, "Oh, my place isn't good enough for you, but your fancy new place is having problems, is it?" It was really embarrassing, and after what the mission had done to her, it was extremely nervy of me to do that. I can't believe the gall! And it was just for reports that could have waited until tomorrow.

She said, "Well, it's freezing out here. Let me make you some hot chocolate. And, it's late, so you should sleep here tonight. The radiators still have hot water access." She insisted, and it was the least we could do. And, it made her day to keep us for one more night.

Looking back, I really can't believe I did that, when we could have just not done the reporting for that week.

[_lemuel]

Some brutal mission stories here:

https://www.timeforcambio.org/letters-home-1

[_Dr. Shades]

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

[_Runtu]

There's always this:

https://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Up-Here-J ... 1105296946

[_SteelHead]

Maybe I'll tell the tale of how our judo instructor ward mission leader hog tied a drunk guy with neck ties and then we cast demons out of him..........

[_Xenophon]

Maybe I'll tell the tale of how our judo instructor ward mission leader hog tied a drunk guy with neck ties and then we cast demons out of him..........

I'd like to officially cast my vote that you SHOULD tell this story.

[_Lemmie]

I don't know if second hand stories count, but apparently a close relative of mine started a commissary business while out on his mission, some 30 years ago, selling hard to get items at ridiculous mark-ups to very desperate elders. He financed the start-up by telling his parents his bike was stolen and he needed cash to replace it. SIX TIMES.

We found out when another relative of mine told the story of bikes being stolen, and found out that that mission was one of the safest-- stolen items were incredibly rare. A little more investigation turned up the story of the Elder who ran the equivalent of "the company store," as in "I sold my soul to.." It turns out everyone hated him, but no one could resist the immediate acess he provided to things like m&ms, a proper razor refill, the occasional tie, etc.

[_Jonah]

Having served only five weeks of a mission in the MTC, I will share my abbreviated story.

Due to having “carnal relations” nightly with a beautiful nymphomaniac BYU coed my entire freshman year, I was required to meet with a G.A. (Henry D. Taylor) prior to submitting my mission papers. The stake center I drove to (Pasadena) had a line of perspective missionaries waiting to speak with Elder Taylor. He was such a nice, gentle, caring old man that I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I hooked up with my BYU gal about a month prior. I only told him what I had done while away at school.

Fast forward to the MTC. Everyday I was hammered with “If there is anything you haven’t confessed to…you won’t be able to learn the language, won’t be able to have the spirit, blah, blah, blah.” After a while I started believing that poop and went to my Branch Prez. He immediately kicked me up the ladder to the MTC Prez (Max Pinegar).

Pinegar told me to write three letters explaining what I had done - one to my Stake Prez, one to my Bishop, and one to my father. I told him that two out of three wasn’t bad because there was NO WAY I would be discussing, or even mentioning, my sexual escapades to my father. He told me to write the other two.

A week later I met with him again after a G.A. (Carlos Asay) fireside at the MTC. Asay was sitting there with him in the office and my Stake Prez was on the phone. My Stake Prez told me he loved me, all was forgiven, and to have a great mission. Pinnegar said that my Bishop was in agreement with me staying. Then Asay said, “And we told your father…he too agrees with you staying.”

Pinegar and Asay sat back in their chairs and looked like they were expecting me to thank them enthusiastically for allowing me to stay. Instead, in a state of shock, I heard myself say, “You sons of bitches…I told you my father was not to be told.” They made some sort of comment about how supportive my father was. I said “perhaps morally supportive, but he hasn’t spent one dime on my mission to this point.” There was a pause, and then I said, “I’m outta here. Do you make arrangements for a plane ticket home or do I?” They did all they could to convince me to stay, but I was PISSED and DONE. Perhaps their tactics had worked on other missionaries, but they picked on the wrong missionary this time.

Three hours later I walked out of the front door of the MTC, hugged the crying Elders and Hermanas of my district, then jumped into a van heading to SLC airport for a flight home and a whole new chapter of HELL in my life.