James Clifford Miller wrote: I learned a lot on my mission, but it wasn't worth the cost. The next time, Charity, that you hear someone complain about being forced to go on a mission, remember they could well be telling the truth.
James Clifford Miller (no sockpuppet here)
Excellent post. You must be about the same age I am. Our mission president told us we had the choice to stay the extra 6 months or go home at 18 months, but he told us we had a responsibility to stay, that Heavenly Father was giving us an opportunity for more service, and it would be wrong to refuse it. When I told him I'd decided to stay, he said, "Good because if you didn't, I'd have kicked your tail all around this mission."
Like I said, almost every missionary I know concurs: at least half the missionaries are there for the "wrong" reasons and do not want to be there. The idea that these teenagers are making some kind of morally reprehensible choice just reflects charity's not knowing much about missions.
I had no choice but to have my 2 year mission shortened mid-stream. I would have begged the mission president to let me go the 24 but I actually thought that would constitute "criticizing my leaders" - so I accepted it. Going home at 18 months - I felt like I was taken out behind the mission home and shot. It was all just starting to come together for me. I felt shorted for many years.
All the real men missionaries that had a choice stayed the entire 2 years. The others were weak, less valiant. This was the faithful party line in the mission. Pathetic.
The Nehor wrote:...the biggest whiner I met on my Mission was Canadian. He believed the gospel but he hated it. He hated his family, the church, and all his leaders. He thought everything was out to screw him and that he was going to hell for reasons beyond his control. He was convinced he was physically hideous and would never find love (he wasn't bad looking). He was a pain to take to discussions as he would share all his doubts and sometimes his hatred would spew out. The guy needed therapy. He needed to get OUT of the Mission where he was destroying himself. He was the biggest wimp I have ever known. Nothing was his responsibility. Not his happiness, not his conduct, and not the choices he'd made. I hope he's sorted himself out by now.
Runtu wrote: Our mission president told us we had the choice to stay the extra 6 months or go home at 18 months, but he told us we had a responsibility to stay, that Heavenly Father was giving us an opportunity for more service, and it would be wrong to refuse it. When I told him I'd decided to stay, he said, "Good because if you didn't, I'd have kicked your tail all around this mission."
Like I said, almost every missionary I know concurs: at least half the missionaries are there for the "wrong" reasons and do not want to be there. The idea that these teenagers are making some kind of morally reprehensible choice just reflects charity's not knowing much about missions.
Sometimes it feels right to repeat myself: Where did they get this Mission President and why wasn't he more in tune with the needs of the Missionaries? Shouldn't missions be more about building the character and confidence of these young men, more than approaching strangers and haranguing them with joining the Church. People are much more apt to respond to a joyous message delivered with love, than a packaged special. Take care of the missionaries for they are the future of the Church.
I was a District Leader on my mission to Denmark, Charity, and I can tell you that a significant portion of the missionaries I met had, in fact, been forced to go on their mission by their family. They're just 18-19 year old kids, Charity, most of whom had little backbone or experience in the world. Fully half of the missionaries in my mission didn't want to be there and couldn't wait to go home.
I even supervised a lady missionary whose bishop and stake president had forged her name on her mission papers unbeknownst to her (as with many religious matters, they felt the end justified the means), skipped the interviews, and presented her with the prophet's miraculous call out of the blue to go on a mission and forced her to break off her engagement. Small wonder she kept suffering from undiagnosable illnesses. Finally, one of her Danish doctors signed a paper stating that she was too ill to continue and should be sent home. It only took a few days home for her to miraculously recover from her illness. Unfortunately, her dumped fiance from before the mission had already gotten married to someone else. He didn't believe her when she'd told him the mission call had come out of the blue. He thought she'd instigated it. She genuinely thought the call came out of the blue. After dealing with her duplicitous SP and bishop getting her home convinced me of their deceit.
I was even forced to go. I just wish I knew then what I know now and I would have told my bishop a polite, but firm, no thank you. Had he forced the issue, I'd have told him if he was so hot for someone to go on a mission, to divorce his wife (if it was true love, she'd wait), and go on the mission himself.
As it was, the change from two-and-a-half years to two year missions came during my mission. Officially, we were to have been given the choice to stay for the original calling or leave at the end of just 24 months, but my mission president was bucking to be chosen a General Authority and he lied to us about the option because (as he foolishly confided to one of the elders working in the mission home) he was afraid too many of us going home after 24 months would hurt his chances for ecclesiastical advancement. Fortunately, several dozen of us got copies of the Church News announcement about the choice, and held our own missionary conference, got our families to agree to foot the bill to fly us home, and then simply presented our mission president with the ultimatum to either give us honorable releases at the end of 24 months or we go home on our own dime (already arranged for) and hold news conferences when we got home to tell about his falsehoods and refusals. Next thing we knew, he had the mission secretary arrange for our tickets home.
What a spiritual giant this guy was. At one point, the GAs were pushing for placement of the book, Meet the Mormons. So to rack up brownie points our mission president ran around placing consignment copies of Meet the Mormons in Danish at bookstores. Then he gave local members mission money to buy the books. THen he would place the same copies back in the same bookstores and buy 'em back again. And again. And again.
Another time, he had a revelation for us to pose as BYU sociology students doing a research project using the Family Home Evening manual in Danish. If asked if we were LDS missionaries, we were explicitly told to lie and say we were BYU research students. The point was to place lots of copies of the manual to impress the GAs at home.
I learned a lot on my mission, but it wasn't worth the cost. The next time, Charity, that you hear someone complain about being forced to go on a mission, remember they could well be telling the truth.
James Clifford Miller (no sockpuppet here)
Any apologists here (I think its down to me, Nehor, and Charity at the moment. Assimilation is almost complete) like to take a shot at parsing the standard motifs and anti-Mormon exit story literary devices here. This is a gem.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
Do you think that ex-members returning to speak against their former religion is unique to Mormonism? It isn't. It happens in all religions that, like Mormonism, claim exclusive rights to the truth and attempt to regulate the lives of believers on a large scale. An ex-member's inability (or lack of desire) to "leave the Church alone" has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the religion is true. I mean, you certainly wouldn't agree that Baptists or Jehovah's Witnesses possess the truth, but individuals who leave those denominations often "return" to warn, caution, or vent their frustrations concerning their experiences.
1. I think it does, at a very deep level, have something to do with the truth of the Church.
2. To the extent this happens in other religions, I think you would find similar personality types and psychological dynamics at work.
Forums like this are a highly self selected concentrations of ex-Mormons who are, without doubt, unrepresentative of the whole of the ex-Mormon or inactive Mormon world. These are people with special motivations and a special viciousness and animosity that is not representative of the overwhelming majority of the people I've met who are not interested in continuing activity in the Church, and cutting through the underbrush to the real issues isn't an easy task.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
ke I said, almost every missionary I know concurs: at least half the missionaries are there for the "wrong" reasons and do not want to be there. The idea that these teenagers are making some kind of morally reprehensible choice just reflects charity's not knowing much about missions.
Or you really don't know much about Missions, or the Church. And as Harmony symbolizes, you can be in the Church for a long time, go on a mission, and do this and that, and still not know very much about it.
Its not about being a member; its about living the Gospel.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
Express astonishment that the zealot Coggs is actually a Follower of Christ here: _____________________
Just to lighten things up, insert snappy one liner jab here: _______________________________________
zzzzzz
Just admit that you've embellished, exaggerated, and freely conjured many elements of your experiences within the Church and mission to achieve exmo street cred here and you'll feel better in the morning. You may even create some sense of decency in the minds of some others here who are doing the same thing.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
Express astonishment that the zealot Coggs is actually a Follower of Christ here: _____________________
Just to lighten things up, insert snappy one liner jab here: _______________________________________
zzzzzz
Just admit that you've embellished, exaggerated, and freely conjured many elements of your experiences within the Church and mission to achieve exmo street cred here and you'll feel better in the morning. You may even create some sense of decency in the minds of some others here who are doing the same thing.
9 ..yea, there were envyings, and strife, and malice, and persecutions, and pride, even to exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the church of God. 10 ..and the wickedness of the church was a great stumbling–block to those who did not belong to the church; and thus the church began to fail in its progress. 11 ..Alma saw the wickedness of the church, and he saw also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another, thus bringing on the destruction of the people. 12 Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted. (Book of Mormon | Alma 4:9 - 12)
Meanie.
Coggs, I'm hurt and weak now. Would you please pass me one of your beers? ..not to drink it. Just to see what you look like through the bottom of the bottle.