Mission Stories

[_cacheman]

I served in the Toulouse mission, which was a hiss and a byword (during the times it existed, it was often closed) to the other missions, as far as we heard. We were often informed by our leaders that we were "the worst of the worst" (ie, the lowest baptizing french mission)

Oh... the Toulouse mission. Yeah, we heard all of the myths surrounding your mission;P Now was Marseilles in the Toulouse mission at one time?

I was in the Geneva Switzerland mission (although all but 3 months was in France). Switzerland was not my cup of tea. It was too tidy.

cacheman

[_beastie]

Oh... the Toulouse mission. Yeah, we heard all of the myths surrounding your mission;P Now was Marseilles in the Toulouse mission at one time?

I was in the Geneva Switzerland mission (although all but 3 months was in France). Switzerland was not my cup of tea. It was too tidy.

Yes, Marseilles was in our mission at one time.

So did you ever hear the urban legend of the missionaries who married each other? Supposedly that happened around your area.

[_krose]

To be honest, I don't think Shiroko was still an area when I was there.

Yeah, probably not. It was actually Shiroko-cho in the city of Suzuka, around the bay from Nagoya, halfway to Ise.

[_krose]

I occasionally daydream about being able to go back into time and re-live the experience. Would I still go knowing what I know now? Would I still go so I can learn the language and visit the places again? Would I still go to meet some of the people, and handle the adversity differently? I honestly don't know.

That's a really good question. I don't know either. Sometimes I have thought that I would like to go back and tell the people I baptized to please disregard everything I told them I 'knew,' that I was misleading them because I was misled myself (partly by myself). But the odds are they didn't last six months in the church anyway, almost certainly not more than a year or two.

[_cacheman]

So did you ever hear the urban legend of the missionaries who married each other? Supposedly that happened around your area.

Oh yeah. I think that everyone in our mission knew some form of that legend. The old Toulouse mission had quite the reputation.

Coincidentally, I had a district leader in Valence who was sweet on a sister missionary. The mission president ended up sending her out of the mission to serve in Toulouse (If I recall correctly, it was then the Bordeaux mission). Well, one night soon after, my district leader disappeared, and went on a trip to visit her. Needless to say, he was sent home. It was such a big deal at the time. Anyway, I saw them once after the mission and they were happily married.

cacheman

[_beastie]

Oh yeah. I think that everyone in our mission knew some form of that legend. The old Toulouse mission had quite the reputation.

Coincidentally, I had a district leader in Valence who was sweet on a sister missionary. The mission president ended up sending her out of the mission to serve in Toulouse (If I recall correctly, it was then the Bordeaux mission). Well, one night soon after, my district leader disappeared, and went on a trip to visit her. Needless to say, he was sent home. It was such a big deal at the time. Anyway, I saw them once after the mission and they were happily married.

Yeah, I heard we had quite a reputation - I was there in 79, by the way. But the reality was that the great "sins" Toulouse missionaries engaged in were:

1 - skiing on their P day outside their district
2 - on transfers, stopping by cities where they used to serve to visit old comps

For those sins, several missionaries were sent home at the end of their mission without temple recommends. And Elder Hale treated us like we were coked up punk rockers.

We had several missionaries get married, too. Obviously, some missionaries had other things on their minds... who could blame us?