Mission Stories

[_Lemmie]

Anyways: Although he is eligible for a service mission from home, you may consider this the shortest mission story so far.

I am unfamiliar with the concept of a service mission from home. Care to elaborate? (Anyone else, feel free to jump in and enlighten me. I don’t see such contributions to a conversation as rude interjections)

My father did a couples' service mission from home with his wife, it involved research and organization of materials related to the lds church's history of humanitarian service.

He used to talk a lot about serving couples' missions, and this was his 3rd or so, but he no longer talks about it, according to my brother. My brother also said my Dad still had to pay the full missionary couples' monthly fee, in spite of living at home and incurring no church-paid expenses while he and his wife worked full time in a church's office as well as having weekend obligations; I think the lack of logic of that financial situation may have been too much even for a solid TBM.

This disturbed me considerably, so I looked into the lds.org documents on this. Under fulltime couple missionaries, there is this:

The following information relates to full-time missionaries. These missionaries typically serve 32 or more hours per week and usually live away from home. Church-service missionaries serve 8-38 hours per week and generally live at home.

And further down the page, this:

Couples: If your actual housing cost is less than $1,400, you will pay the full amount to your home ward missionary fund. If your actual housing cost exceeds $1,400, you will pay only $1,400.

So my dad, who has no mortgage, apparently still had to pay $1400 a month to the lds corporation, for the opportunity of living at home and providing two full-time workers for their business enterprises.

Disgusting.

[_Jonah]

I feel very fortunate that my son is not eligible to serve a full time mission, because of his Aspergers. I think that the church has been prudent here. My son is obedient to a fault and will be 18 soon and I think at this point that a FT mission would be dangerous for him. So I'm glad that choice has been made for him. Although I'm still a little sad that the choice has been made for him.

Feelings are complicated.

Anyways: Although he is eligible for a service mission from home, you may consider this the shortest mission story so far.

My oldest son has Asperger’s. Yeah, there was no way he would have functioned in a FT mission. In fact, I was a little nervous that my TBM ex would push for him to go (she is that stupid). Perhaps she did, but wiser heads intervened. Some sort of “mission” was developed for my son though. He reported two or three times a week to the genealogy library at one of the stake centers here in town. I’m not sure what he did there, or for how long he did it for (perhaps two years), but everyone seemed to count that as his “mission”.

[_Meadowchik]

Anyways: Although he is eligible for a service mission from home, you may consider this the shortest mission story so far.

I am unfamiliar with the concept of a service mission from home. Care to elaborate? (Anyone else, feel free to jump in and enlighten me. I don’t see such contributions to a conversation as rude interjections)

Bishop said it can involve a couple hours a day of service at the storehouse, although we don't have one here, but we do have a mission home in town. Maybe regular splits with the missionaries, or duties at the mission home?

I do have a friend who recently finished an 18 month service mission. She has spina bifida and did it at the same time as schooling and living at home. OTOH, Salt Lake City does have a special program for autistic kids to serve near Temple Square in some capacity, maybe the Family History Center or something. There was a news article about it a while back.

[_Meadowchik]

So my dad, who has no mortgage, apparently still had to pay $1400 a month to the LDS corporation, for the opportunity of living at home and providing two full-time workers for their business enterprises.

Disgusting.

That is enraging. Just think about all these aging LDS couples. They tend to have many kids, maybe many more than they could have afforded if they had not been promised that the Lord would bridge the gaps. They've served their whole lives in the church, they've been taught to adore the temple experience where they're again away from their larger-than-average families, and now they are going into retirement often with little to nothing, and then to complete the path, they can be expected to pay to spend more time away from their families doing things someone else tells them to do.

It's a harrowing thought. On one hand, I wish I could tell them they are free to do whatever they want. OTHO, that would involve telling them their whole lives has been invested in false promises.

[Guest]

My oldest son has Asperger’s. Yeah, there was no way he would have functioned in a FT mission. In fact, I was a little nervous that my TBM ex would push for him to go (she is that stupid). Perhaps she did, but wiser heads intervened. Some sort of “mission” was developed for my son though. He reported two or three times a week to the genealogy library at one of the stake centers here in town. I’m not sure what he did there, or for how long he did it for (perhaps two years), but everyone seemed to count that as his “mission”.

The cynical side of me is aware that the ineligibility is probably for liability purposes. Given the knowledge that autism might be a safety risk for their missionaries, they would have to be much more cautious about tracking and assigning them, so it makes sense to make them ineligible altogether.

I don't know if my son knows about it yet. He hasn't brought up mission stuff in a long time. Could be because of our disaffection, or maybe he's less interested, or both.

[_Lemmie]

So my dad, who has no mortgage, apparently still had to pay $1400 a month to the LDS corporation, for the opportunity of living at home and providing two full-time workers for their business enterprises.

Disgusting.

That is enraging. Just think about all these aging LDS couples. They tend to have many kids, maybe many more than they could have afforded if they had not been promised that the Lord would bridge the gaps. They've served their whole lives in the church, they've been taught to adore the temple experience where they're again away from their larger-than-average families, and now they are going into retirement often with little to nothing, and then to complete the path, they can be expected to pay to spend more time away from their families doing things someone else tells them to do.

It's a harrowing thought. On one hand, I wish I could tell them they are free to do whatever they want. OTHO, that would involve telling them their whole lives has been invested in false promises.

I know, I'm in the same boat, harrowing is exactly the correct adjective to use. My dad is 80, he's come to some sort of conclusion and is apparently embarrassed to have wasted so much money, I don't want to look like I'm rubbing it in now. I think he feels very foolish, and my heart aches for him over that. I left decades ago, and he's just now seeing the damage. What a horrible mindset to have to deal with at 80.

[_Meadowchik]

I know, I'm in the same boat, harrowing is exactly the correct adjective to use. My dad is 80, he's come to some sort of conclusion and is apparently embarrassed to have wasted so much money, I don't want to look like I'm rubbing it in now. I think he feels very foolish, and my heart aches for him over that. I left decades ago, and he's just now seeing the damage. What a horrible mindset to have to deal with at 80.

Yes. My parents are in their early 70s. Something about being in my forties had made me try to see my parents more fully as people in addition to their relationship to me. I remember on a visit being more cautious about letting him help me lift stuff and he seemed irritated by my concern so I tried to temper that.

Mom still babysits grandkids regularly and, despite having a decent retirement fund, he's going back to work. They want to be able to help out some of my siblings more.

By the way, when my dad returned to BYU after his mission, he couldn't afford new clothes so he wore his mission attire. His shirts were so worn, they were transparent. The soles of his shoes were rubbed off. He paid for his mission. He and mom were optimistic when they married, planning to have a dozen kids but stopping short when the depression hit. We lived off beans and cornbread for several years. Out of all of us, the older kids wore my parents out and they blame themselves for slacking on FHE with the younger kids. They blame their early departure from the church on that. I feel like they've been trying to make up for neglecting my youngest siblings ever since we all moved out.

We're fortunate, my parents were an excellent example of literacy and resilience to us and they try to keep close to us now. I just still feel bad about all the hard work and sacrifice that might have been spent more effectively and healthily and with better results.

[_Chuck Finley]

I was part of an emergency transfer where I received a companion who was being "midnight transferred" (i.e., transferred in the middle of a transfer cycle) from another area in the mission because of some girl problems. I was supposed to be his reformer, or at least try to keep him away from the girls in the ward in which I was serving. It wasn't necessarily like he was a creepy predator or anything--he just tended to be overly flirtatious with the 16-18 year old girls, and the girls tended to be likely to reciprocate with any missionary willing to show a sufficient amount of attention as the area was generally short on any other Mormon men they might meet.

Did you ever hear anything from ward members about your companion? Did they openly complain about his interactions with youth? Or was it just something observed by local leaders or someone like a zone leader and shut down because of that? In other words, did the members notice and care?

If you don’t mind my asking, where did you serve?

[_Chuck Finley]

<snip>

Anyway, fast forward a couple weeks and we are together with another group of missionaries hanging out on a preparation day. My companion is bragging about his skill with the ladies and we are teasing him about only being successful with 16-18 year olds and that he doesn't have what it takes to actually get a girl his own age. "Oh yeah?" he asks. He then goes into his bedroom and produces a collection of letters that he and one of the sister missionaries in the mission had been exchanging surreptitiously. She was apparently quite taken with him and a few of her letters consisted principally of erotic poetry she had written about the two of them. Fairly cheesy stuff, not something that was going to win any awards or critical acclaim--but I still remember the line about how she imagined them "lying together naked in the dark, as your hand passes over my breast."

While it all just seems silly now, it seemed a very serious matter for an Elder to possess such "pornography," so we convinced him to burn all of the letters and pictures he and this particular sister had been exchanging. I recall burning it all inside the apartment in a small little pan--not sure why we didn't at least take it outside.

This story triggered another question in my mind. For those of you who served missions, do you often observe or hear gossip about hanky panky between a sister and elder? I mean, there's going to be the normal amount of flirting between young people in this particular age bracket, but was it your experience that they took it farther than that? I'm not necessarily interested in lurid details, just curious about the prevalence of young people taking it too far ("too far" in the mission context being just about anything, right?).

[_Dr. Shades]

OTHO, that would involve telling them their whole lives has been invested in false promises.

"OTHO" = "On The Hand Other?"

He and mom were optimistic when they married, planning to have a dozen kids but stopping short when the depression hit.

The Depression hit in 1929. If they stopped short having kids at that time, then they were already married with one or more kids. In that case, they're in their 110s, not their 70s.

For those of you who served missions, do you often observe or hear gossip about hanky panky between a sister and elder?

Well, this isn't "sister and elder," like you asked, but in my mission there were two sister missionaries--companions--who went lesbian together.

Does that count an answer to your question?