Mission Stories

[_Jonah]

Whenever I hear of prospective missionaries questioning whether to go on a mission or not, I always counsel them that it is way easier not to go than to go and come home early.

I think 'easier' might be too soft a word. It's way more beneficial to your own personal mental health and self esteem, as well as your familial relationships not to go, than to go and come home early. And that speaks volumes about the culture in the Church and in Mormon families than it does about those young men and women who make the effort to try a mission but for various reasons it would damage them more to stick it out. It is much safer to your eternal relationships to not try, than to try and be labelled by those around you, a failure. That's Mormons and Mormonism, for you...

So true. Fortunately it appears that it is now somewhat "culturally acceptable" in the church to come home early from a mission due to "depression", "anxiety", or whatever other mental disorder one can come up with. This seems to give the missionary (and parents) an "out" when it comes to saving face (for appearance sakes) with other family, church members, and peers.

I have read articles and seen other websites that have discussed how to handle and treat ERM's. They seem to focus on building the ERM's esteem, worth, and spirituality while at the same time walking on eggshells. The goal seems more like "How do we keep him/her as a positive productive member of the church?" as opposed to "How do we keep him/her from jumping off the roof?" What a load of B.S.!!

The only thing...THE ONLY THING...an ERM needs is the UNCONDITIONAL love, help, and support of his family. Nothing else matters. I longed for a scenario where my father would sit down with me and say something like, "O.K. Jonah, the mission is out...I get that. So let's sit down and kind of map out a plan for you to successfully move on with your life. Let's get you some transportation and from there we can get you a part-time job and back into school. As long as you are working and going to school you can live here room/board free. Let's set up a savings account and figure out what percentage of your paycheck to deposit, how much you will need to budget to pay us back for a car, and how much you'll need for yourself each month..." That never happened. Instead I was made to pay for the shame and embarrassment I had brought to my family. Whenever I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, my family tried to make sure that light was a freight train headed my way. They tried. Sometimes they were successful...other times not. That was a lot for a 19-year old kid to handle. Their examples taught me an awful lot of what NOT to do in how I treated people and when facing certain situations in life. For that, I am grateful.

[_Dr. Shades]

What sort of relationships do you have with your parents and siblings now? (If any of them are deceased, please tell us what those relationships were like right before they passed.)

Assuming you wish to share, of course.

[_Jonah]

What sort of relationships do you have with your parents and siblings now? (If any of them are deceased, please tell us what those relationships were like right before they passed.)

Assuming you wish to share, of course.

After I got married and went back to school, my parents started warming up to me. We actually built a relationship. When it came time for me to graduate, I was considering going for a Master’s Degree, but my father (a very wealthy man) offered me a position in a company he was a part of. His pitch of, “You’ll be a millionaire before I was” was too tempting to turn down for a starving, married, college student, so I took him up on it. After a couple of years though the business stalled and I saw the writing on the wall. A friend of mine and I approached him about an investment opportunity in another business that my friend and I would operate. The investment was $200,000 and although it grew in value to be worth 15+ times the original investment over 20 years, my father was a controlling pain in the ass to deal with.

My final falling out with my father occurred about a year or so after my sweetheart passed away due to cancer. I had taken in her four kids, paid off her debt, and kept her home from being foreclosed on. In doing so I incurred some debt. I approached my father about him releasing some deferred salary to me in order to get back on my feet again. Over the years I had deferred around $50,000 for various reasons and I was approaching him for around $15,000. He asked me what would happen if he didn’t write me a check. I told him that I would lose the house, and the kids (who I had taken in) and I would be out on the street. He sat back for a moment and then said, “That might not be a bad lesson for you to learn. They aren’t your kids, you don’t owe them anything.” After pleading, crying, and begging for an hour, he wrote me a check. Then he asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him. I declined, and as I drove home I vowed to myself that any further interaction with him would be strictly business, nothing personal ever again.

My final falling out with my mother occurred after my divorce. My mother had never cared for my wife when we were married and treated her like crap. After the divorce though, she sided with my ex out of guilt. That didn’t really bother me until I noticed some peculiar behavior from my ex concerning my kids. She was not sharing with me any information about their schooling, activities, sporting event schedules, etc. When I confronted her after my son asked why I wasn’t coming to watch him play basketball (I didn’t know he was playing in a league and had never been given a schedule), my ex admitted that she was sorry and that she had been given some bad advice from my mother. Apparently my mother was telling her not to voluntarily provide me with information, but instead to make me beg for it. I had ZERO tolerance for anyone who was scheming to put distance between my kids and myself. I cut my mother off and had no contact with her for the last four years of her life.

Just before my mother passed away, she and my father planned their estate. Their assets were put in trusts, some irrevocable. The business I had brought to my father was one of those assets. Part of the plan was for the business to be sold and put in a trust for distribution over 20 years. I worked with the estate planners to get the sale done much to the chagrin of my father who had the impression that regardless of what estate planning he had set up, all of that was null and void once my mother passed away. He was pissed that an asset of his could be sold without his approval. He was also suffering from dementia and early onset of Alzheimers for which he was taking medication.

My siblings (two sisters) seized on his vulnerability, paranoia, and lack of relationship with me. They shielded him from contact with me and convinced him that I was working with the estate planners against the family. They lied by telling him I had stolen $1 million from the sale of the business which pushed him to cutting me out of his will and and attempting to overthrow the entire estate plan. To them it was better to divide things up two ways instead of three.

My father passed way (I had no contact with him the last three years of his life), but not before my sisters convinced him to hire attorneys to try to overthrow the estate plan (failed), and then shifted their focus to the estate planners. The estate planners (members of the church and friends of the family) were then sued for fraud, conspiracy, elder abuse, etc. to the tune of $15 million. Because of MY involvement in support of the estate planners as well as in the sale of the business, I was named in the suit along with the estate planners as an accomplice. My sisters lost the suit two years ago, and it is now up on appeal. This litigation has been going on for nearly 14 years, the longest case of being filed to going to trial in the history of the county.

My sisters are both TBM members of the church. One sister and her husband are temple workers. Before the decision in the case, they put in extra hours of temple work in the hope that they would be blessed with a decision in their favor. Maybe they should have put in even more hours. We don’t exchange X-mas cards.

[_azzolina]

This documentary though old is really good.
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/474120/M ... World-The/
I met Peter Wiley, one of the writers and the author of America's Saints, and he told me they could not find one example of someone successfully completing a mission.

[_Res Ipsa]

Jonah, it's heartbreaking for me to read your story. I returned early as well, but was extremely lucky in how my family reacted. Reading others' stories makes that crystal clear.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

JONAH. Hugs, man. And your friend is the crap. “F” your father.

- Doc

[_Dr. Shades]

That's quite something, Jonah. WOW. Thank you for spending the time to type it all up; I very much appreciate it.

[_I have a question]

Family isn't necessarily the people with whom you share DNA.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/10 ... ccounter=1

Don't allow toxic people into your life, and don't be a toxic person.

[_Doctor Steuss]

Jonah,

I hope you'll consider one day putting this together in either a book, or blog, or something else that allows for a longer and more detailed treatment.

Your writing voice is incredibly engaging. After ending each post, my heart hurts for what you've gone through; but, I am also tugged with a need to keep reading more of your words.

Thank you for taking the time to share some of your experiences. I'm sorry you have had to travel so many rocky trails.

[_Runtu]

Jonah, I'm sorry you have had to go through all of that. Some people are so toxic that you're better off without them in your life, no matter their biological relationship to you.