I wasted two years of my life

[_Yoda]

I am jumping in here late... I've been rather busy. I passed out behind the wheel of my car, came to seconds later to pull the car back into my lane, and spent the next day in and out of the emergency room trying to figure out why I passed out while driving. Never got an answer. Hope it's a fluke. What a way to ring in the New Year.

Just saw this.

Trevor, sorry to hear that! I too hope it was just a fluke.

That's scary, Trev! Hope you're OK! Could it be blood pressure?

[_The Nehor]

I think she was dead on. Right on the money. Couldn't really have said it better myself. Totally supports Mercury's assertions that he felt forced.

What's different about your angle?

I don't think Mercury was forced and I bet there were Missionaries on his Mission who wished he hadn't come.

[_Moniker]

I think she was dead on. Right on the money. Couldn't really have said it better myself. Totally supports Mercury's assertions that he felt forced.

What's different about your angle?

I don't think Mercury was forced

Why? What made you conclude that?

[_The Nehor]

...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.

What prompted him to go on his mission?

He wouldn't say. I suspect he just had nothing else to do. Admittedly he claimed to believe in the Gospel he just thought it was unfair (particularly to him) and that it wasn't his fault that he was a 'loser' (his words). He had a kind of martyr complex that he was doing what he was supposed to even though it wouldn't do any good. He did virtually nothing he was supposed to. His case for being a martyr was pathetically weak.

[_The Nehor]

I think she was dead on. Right on the money. Couldn't really have said it better myself. Totally supports Mercury's assertions that he felt forced.

What's different about your angle?

I don't think Mercury was forced

Why? What made you conclude that?

Because no one is forced to go on a Mission. I hate this kind of abdication of personal responsibility for people's choices. There may have been people urging him to go. Unless he was abducted he chose to go. At 19 virtually everyone is capable of defying their parents. They've probably been doing it for years.

[_The Nehor]

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.

Go for it, Coggins.

[_Moniker]

I think she was dead on. Right on the money. Couldn't really have said it better myself. Totally supports Mercury's assertions that he felt forced.

What's different about your angle?

I don't think Mercury was forced

Why? What made you conclude that?

Because no one is forced to go on a Mission. I hate this kind of abdication of personal responsibility for people's choices. There may have been people urging him to go. Unless he was abducted he chose to go. At 19 virtually everyone is capable of defying their parents. They've probably been doing it for years.

No one is saying he didn't choose to go -- the issue is whether he did so because he felt pressured (a.k.a. forced) to do so. People choose to do things all the time that they do not desire to do because others exert pressure on them. Nehor, is this really this complex to understand? Pushing one to do something against their will is force. Many people acquiesce to desires other than their own all the time. Throughout life.

[_truth dancer]

Because no one is forced to go on a Mission. I hate this kind of abdication of personal responsibility for people's choices. There may have been people urging him to go. Unless he was abducted he chose to go. At 19 virtually everyone is capable of defying their parents. They've probably been doing it for years.

It is much more complicated than this.

This topic reminds me of a young woman with whom I worked who was "forced" into an arranged marriage. Did anyone hold a gun to her head? Nope. Did anything threaten to kill her? Nope?

But, if she didn't go along with the marriage she would be shunned for life, never again see her parents or siblings, be cast out of her community, and her family would be shamed forever. The consequence for not marrying were too severe for her to even comtemplate.

Similarly, some young men feel such pressure to go on a mission, and feel such horror at the consequences for NOT going, that the only option they can see is to go. It is not about disobeying their parents, it is about displeasing God, trying to have trust in leaders, trying to have faith that their testimonies will indeed grow. It is about doing what they have been taught all their life is their duty and obligation. It is about holding hope that the blessings they are promised will indeed materialize. It is about not disappointing families, friends, leaders, and community. It is about holding onto hope that God is really there.

It is shameful to suggest that these boys who give two years of their lives, as they try to manage their situation the best they can, hoping somehow life will turn out well after the struggle, who put their faith in those who claim to speak to God, are somehow chicken, or stupid, or weak, or unable to stand up to their parents.

I'm not about blame or guilt or holding onto the past, but to suggest the church/doctrine/teachings/culture did not play a huge part in these young men going on missions is to be either naïve or disengenuous.

~dancer~

[_The Nehor]

Because no one is forced to go on a Mission. I hate this kind of abdication of personal responsibility for people's choices. There may have been people urging him to go. Unless he was abducted he chose to go. At 19 virtually everyone is capable of defying their parents. They've probably been doing it for years.

It is much more complicated than this.

This topic reminds me of a young woman with whom I worked who was "forced" into an arranged marriage. Did anyone hold a gun to her head? Nope. Did anything threaten to kill her? Nope?

But, if she didn't go along with the marriage she would be shunned for life, never again see her parents or siblings, be cast out of her community, and her family would be shamed forever. The consequence for not marrying were too severe for her to even comtemplate.

Similarly, some young men feel such pressure to go on a mission, and feel such horror at the consequences for NOT going, that the only option they can see is to go. It is not about disobeying their parents, it is about displeasing God, trying to have trust in leaders, trying to have faith that their testimonies will indeed grow. It is about doing what they have been taught all their life is their duty and obligation. It is about holding hope that the blessings they are promised will indeed materialize. It is about not disappointing families, friends, leaders, and community. It is about holding onto hope that God is really there.

It is shameful to suggest that these boys who give two years of their lives, as they try to manage their situation the best they can, hoping somehow life will turn out well after the struggle, who put their faith in those who claim to speak to God, are somehow chicken, or stupid, or weak, or unable to stand up to their parents.

I'm not about blame or guilt or holding onto the past, but to suggest the church/doctrine/teachings/culture did not play a huge part in these young men going on missions is to be either naïve or disengenuous.

~dancer~

Call me shameful then especially when they say they don't believe it themselves. I don't know if Mercury is still watching this thread but did other Missionaries ever suggest that you should quit and go home?

[_MishMagnet]

I don't know why it's so difficult to see that there is a huge expectation for men to serve missions. What percentage of young men go on missions? What percentage of young women go on missions? If it were truly a choice you would see much less men going on missions, I am going to presume to say no higher a percentage than women who go. This is becuase the young women really do have the choice. It's okay to say you are choosing to finish college. It's okay to say you just don't feel compelled to go. There is no stigma. Nobody asks you where you served your mission if you are over 21 and are a woman.

Even if you do insist it is a free choice - I chose to go to BYU but, in retrospect I feel the time I spent there is now wasted time in my life. It was a time I could have been doing other things. You can both choose to do something AND later feel it was wasted time or a mistake.