What was Your Mission Like?

[Rivendale]

Go over to exmormon Reddit for your salve. They would welcome you with all kinds of advice.

I wouldn't tell them you want to be a moderator just yet though, sledge. You might scare thèm off.

This is really strange. Taking on pseudonyms and pretending they are someone else? The Richard Nygren fiasco comes to mind. Most of us have pseudonyms that probably change from platform to platform but this doesn't seem that way because of the apparent insincerity of the conversation. What is the motivation? I can only guess there must be some sort of adrenaline rush like the acrostic Metcalf is Butthead provided to Hamblin. Does seperating yourself from the chains of Mormonism give some sort of freedom to thrash on critics? There must be some sort of diagnosis for this. Edit...in researching this I found an old RfM board post by Steve Benson that explains a lot of this. Steve nailed it https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,316197

[I Have Questions]

Sledge/Flemming/Nolan,

What do you consider to be a bad companion? It's unusual to have all bad comps except for one. I only had one comp I couldn't get along with but wouldn't say he was "bad". I can't recall any missionary in my mission that I'd consider "bad" in fact.

Yeah, well the good ones weren’t memorable, just boring. That’s why I say they were “all” bad in a colloquial sense, and not a statistical sense. But thanks for your input Aristotle Smith/Defender/Sidewinder/Gadianton. Where did you end up serving? Stateside I am assuming?

Here’s what you actually said

I really struggled to feel the presence of the spirit due to constant stress and emotional exhaustion from horrible (and I do mean mostly horrible) companions.

Now is that “horrible (and I do mean mostly horrible)” in a statistical or colloquial sense?

[yellowstone123]

Analytics wrote:

I started in Argentina, got extremely sick, got sent home but wasn’t released, and after a couple of months was reassigned to Tempe Arizona.

Thank you for writing this, Analytics. I was in the MTC for 5 weeks in the fall of 1980 and then in the northeast, USA for another 5 week. That was it for me. I was so depressed, a local non-LDS doctor (GP) who saw missionaries for free told my mission president that he wanted me to go home to rest. The mission president tried to get me to stay with an older couple in the mission until I was well, but that wasn't going to happen. I flew home and they didn't release me. After about three months I had sex for the first time and then they had to release me. Then there was a court and probation and then "mistakes" were made, another confession and then another court and excommunication which took depression to a dangerous level. Today I still have lots of scars, psychological scars, and real scars on my left wrist, but I got through it. I have nothing but compassion for that 19-year-old. I just want to hug him and say "there was nothing wrong with you."

What I find interesting is that in the fall of 1980 the mtc mission president Joe C. would get up and lecture us for a while. One time he said, "Elders, don't ever leave your companion," and yet this is what they did as they sent young elders home who were walking around still ordained.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

It’s now been seven days since Sledge last posted. Weird it felt the need to create the persona of ‘Nolan’. What is it with Mormorons and creating sock puppets?

- Doc