How bad we had it as missionaries

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_Sethbag
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _Sethbag »

You have no idea how bad it was on my mission. I couldn't always afford name brand chocolate and so I had to make do with the Migros store brand. It just wasn't the same. And sometimes the members would serve quark for dessert after an otherwise stellar meal.

And just be glad you had water. We had to drink Sprudelwasser (carbonated water) half the time, and boy did that suck! And let me tell you, I drank my lifetime's quota of Hagebuttentee! But I just thought of the Lord and choked it down for Jesus.

Not to mention the horror of having to use a small Swiss washing machine, and they didn't even have regular dryers - we had to spin our clothes in these funky centrifuges and then hang the clothes up to evaporate off the last remaining moisture. Moisture we were wasting, though thousands of Utah Saints had been praying their asses off for it!

And then the worst part was that after we'd dried our clothes after centrifuging them, they were kind of rough on our skin, because those barbaric Swiss don't know about Bounty, and you can't use a dryer sheet if you don't have a dryer, now can you?

But the absolute worst thing was that I had to spend two years riding my bike all over Switzerland and southern Germany. I mean, I thought it was going to spend all my time imparting all of my knowledge and wisdom about the real Jesus to the people of Switzerland and Germany, but instead I had to ride a bike the whole time, and actually see all the towns and villages up close, instead of just ignoring them as I might have been able to do if I'd had a car. The horror!
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
_Mercury
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _Mercury »

Sethbag wrote: But I just thought of the Lord and choked it down for Jesus.


Context is king.
And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time
And lost in space...and meaning
_cafe crema
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _cafe crema »

Runtu wrote:
The thing to remember is that the good food you can get there (and some of it is really good) is basically a special-occasion-only food for most Bolivians. Take a look at this photo:Image



You've met me. I'm barely 5'8" in shoes, and these people are adults. They're short because of malnutrition. Life expectancy there is 66 years, way up from where it was 1984, when I was there, when it was 55.




Runtu, sorry to take your serious thread off course, but you look like a Beatle in that picuture. :smile:
_ajax18
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _ajax18 »

When you live in a place where you don't have enough to eat, no decent clothes or housing or medical care, and your children are literally dying because you don't have access to safe water or food, you really don't have time to look up and see the higher things. You're too busy trying to survive.


I think you have to be in the shack cities, smell them, and experience the feeling that everything you touch let alone eat could leave you permanently sick.

But the poverty is so pervasive. How much would it change things if you gave away all the money you would have used to build a temple out in WIC payments. I know this sounds cruel but I think you would just get more women having more kids that they can't afford to provide for at the standard of living they desire and ultimately more poverty. The shack cities would look the same, perhaps even worse.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
_sleepyhead
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _sleepyhead »

Hello,

I didn't go on a mission but I had it rough growing up. Some days the ice cream truck would only drive by 3 times during the whole day.
May all your naps be joyous occasions.
_Runtu
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _Runtu »

ajax18 wrote:I think you have to be in the shack cities, smell them, and experience the feeling that everything you touch let alone eat could leave you permanently sick.

But the poverty is so pervasive. How much would it change things if you gave away all the money you would have used to build a temple out in WIC payments. I know this sounds cruel but I think you would just get more women having more kids that they can't afford to provide for at the standard of living they desire and ultimately more poverty. The shack cities would look the same, perhaps even worse.


I didn't say anything about WIC payments but rather mentioned infrastructure improvements. Looking at this in purely economic terms, improvements to infrastructure reduce poverty and increase economic growth. A water-treatment plant, for example, isn't going to affect the number of children born but will instead ensure that the living are not sick all the time and dying prematurely. If yuu're an employed adult and you are constantly sick with worms, amoebic dysentery, and other such parasites, you are less productive and less able to raise your family out of poverty.

Open sewers contribute to cholera, typhoid, and a host of diseases. Again, populations regularly affected by outbreaks of preventable diseases are less productive.

I heard a report a while back about an experiment in giving simple cash payments to poor people in Africa, with no strings attached. Almost all the cash payments were used to purchase corrugated tin roofs for the people's houses. A waste of money? No, because previously these people were using thatched roofs, which require frequent maintenance and expensive materials. This meant that families were spending an inordinate amount of money and time maintaining their roofs instead of engaging in more productive activities. A tin roof seems like an unnecessary "luxury" but instead contributed to more people working more hours and bringing home more money.
Runtu's Rincón

If you just talk, I find that your mouth comes out with stuff. -- Karl Pilkington
_ajax18
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _ajax18 »

Open sewers contribute to cholera, typhoid, and a host of diseases. Again, populations regularly affected by outbreaks of preventable diseases are less productive.


Tell me about it. I remember being pushed off the road by a bus and falling into an open sewer. It's funny thinking back on it now, but it wasn't then.

Now that you point it out that way, investment in infrastructure does seem like it could be productive. I'm in favor of improving quality of life there any way possible.

I still think that the third world has an overpopulation problem that they for the most part aren't willing to change. I just don't see how the quality of life there can significantly improve if this issue is not addressed.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
_EAllusion
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _EAllusion »

I think you have the horse before the cart Ajax18. The single most important way to reduce population growth is to improve quality of life. Nations with fully developed economies and all the economic opportunity that entails tend to have low birth rates. Nearly the entire Western world has near flat or below replacement rate internal growth.

Children are a huge drag on personal resources and opportunity for enjoyment in developed nations, and the people in them tend to have less as a consequence of it. Children are also much less likely to die in modern economies, so it isn't necessary to have more to hedge against that possibility. The availability and cultural acceptance of birth control has to coincide with this, but that consistently parallels any sufficiently developed nation. In short, people have less children when they have the opportunity for a high quality of life.
_Quasimodo
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _Quasimodo »

ajax18 wrote:
Open sewers contribute to cholera, typhoid, and a host of diseases. Again, populations regularly affected by outbreaks of preventable diseases are less productive.


Tell me about it. I remember being pushed off the road by a bus and falling into an open sewer. It's funny thinking back on it now, but it wasn't then.

Now that you point it out that way, investment in infrastructure does seem like it could be productive. I'm in favor of improving quality of life there any way possible.

I still think that the third world has an overpopulation problem that they for the most part aren't willing to change. I just don't see how the quality of life there can significantly improve if this issue is not addressed.


What do you think is the cause of overpopulation in underdeveloped countries? A serious question.

I know that many poor countries often have a majority of Catholic adherents and the Catholic Church frowns on birth control. I suspect that those poor people cannot afford birth control, as well.

I am also aware that many cultures view having many children as a way to ensure care in their old age.

Should free birth control be available in poorer countries?
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.

"Faith is believing something you know ain't true" Twain.
_Sethbag
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Re: How bad we had it as missionaries

Post by _Sethbag »

Paracelsus wrote:I am really sorry for You, brother Sethbag.

Unfortunately, we are that barbaric. We can not make real chocolate.

I'm trying to remember the name of it, but I really liked that Migros chocolate that had corn flakes in it.
I do live neun Stock above a Migros. The building is mine, despite this fact I can not convince them to put right their assortment. In our country there are many people who are someway democratic - far worse than American Democrats - and I am failing to force them.

I would go down to Migros (or whatever other store, depending on the town) and buy a fresh, still-warm Zopfbrot, or a nice round hard-shell St. Gallerbrot. You have no idea how many dozens of containers of that Migros brand of gooey Nutella-like stuff I ate on my mission, with all that fresh bread. Or, when I lived in a place where I could shop at Aldi or Lidl, I'd get this German generic brand of Nutella that was better than the Migros gooey version, but still cheaper than Nutella.
Last but not least, You shouldn't have seen our pitiable settlements.
With the help of Holy Spirit Heiligen Geist You could have bicycled with closed eyes.

Perhaps, but not without my hands on the handlebars. I was pulled over by a cop and given a ticket for riding my bicycle without holding onto the handlebars. It was in Solothurn.
by the way as somebody familiar in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, you may second me - with Neuhausen am Rheinfall, in the nearby.
Rheinfallstrasse 7, to be precise.

I lived in Schaffhausen for six months on my mission. It was the last Swiss city I lived in before I finished out in Germany.

by the way, speaking of nine story buildings, the elders in Kreuzlingen lived on the 8th or 9th story of a large apartment building. I used to go down there a lot with my companion and stay up all night on P-day Eve playing Risk with Elder Bill Nerenberg. Nerenberg's companion had these bottle rockets and he kept launching them out of the window of his apartment downwards, toward the street. He scared and pissed a lot of people off doing that.

by the way, I road the living crap out of Schaffhausen on my bike. All over the freaking place. I'd ride down to Stein am Rhein, I rode out to Singen a few times for zone activities. I've got all sorts of memories of riding around that area. Haven't been back there since 1990 though. I imagine it's a lot different now.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
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