My Time as a Mormon Missionary

[msnobody]

Part of your story reminded me of how the most recent set missionaries had me to read Alma 32, which seems to me to be a manipulative text, especially 32:16.

Sounds like you really cared about people and that is an honorable thing.

Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it.

Oh yeah, making investigators read Alma 32:16 is the shaming and guilt trip tactics. Most of the time even if they get baptized, they don't stay long.

I assume you didn't get baptized?

You assume correctly.

[Dr. Shades]

Thanks for sharing, markc. As luck would have it, I wrote a little about my time as a Mormon Missionary, too:

Elder Shades's Missionary Journal

[markc]

Thanks for sharing, markc. As luck would have it, I wrote a little about my time as a Mormon Missionary, too:

Elder Shades's Missionary Journal

Thanks. I don't know if it's just me though, but I can't open the link; it says file not found.

[Dr. Shades]

Thanks. I don't know if it's just me though, but I can't open the link; it says file not found.

That’s strange; it works for me.

[markc]

That’s strange; it works for me.

Ha, found it, I Googled it. Thanks for sharing.

[msnobody]

Thanks for sharing, markc. As luck would have it, I wrote a little about my time as a Mormon Missionary, too:

Elder Shades's Missionary Journal

I’m lying in bed reading your missionary journal, on day 31, when memories of my missionaries come to mind. Tears are streaming down my face. Each of my missionaries are at different times in their mission service. One is so severely depressed, he can barely hold his head up. He has been on his mission for a while. One is a greenie who has just come to terms with all he has had to give up to go on his mission, more than give up “ looking at girls,” as he put it. I notice as his eyes fix on a book in our church library entitled, Every Young Man’s Battle. It’s like a I can see inside him and see the turmoil of being human, and a determination to choose the right. It brings tears to my eyes because these same struggles can go on long after the mission is over. Then, there is the AP, OMG, arrogant Elder AP, who I told that I wish I could turn a mirror toward him so he could see how full of himself he is. Another one of the missionaries I catch in my peripheral vision with an approving facial expression that says she nailed you buddy. How, though could I not also have compassion for Elder AP, who must have conflicting thoughts, feelings, and pressure from within and causing him to act out in this way. One who is the ZL and tasked with helping missionaries in the field get along together and resolve conflicts. ZL, in my opinion, held his mental faculties together, so much better than all the others. Then, finally when the pressure reached boiling point, gathered around the investigator and sang Called To Serve. This was the first time I had met with all of them at the same time.

Most disheartening to me is seeing how The Church slowly and methodically drives a wedge between what was once a child’s sense of being loved and having communion with his/her creator to truth perverted. I could see the childlike faith in contention with the heavy yoke placed, over time, by the perverted gospel taught by The Church within my missionaries.

By now, I’m sitting in my living room thinking about how Elders Kjar, Carroll, Niitsuma, Allen, Boehme, and others are “my” missionaries because God sent them to me to teach, discipline, and grow me through them. Little do they know that while they were feeling all the emotions of being an LDS missionaries, they were actually fulfilling the mission for which The Lord sent them. A picture of my daughter sitting atop a South American mountain is now appearing on the digital frame. Did “my missionaries” play a role in my own daughter’s mission to South America? Was their mission a success? A part of God’s divine decree? I believe so.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Thanks for sharing, markc. As luck would have it, I wrote a little about my time as a Mormon Missionary, too:

Elder Shades's Missionary Journal

Dr. Shades, I read your journal years ago and I loved it. I especially enjoyed reading the evolution of your relationship with Theressa.

January 3rd, 1990. Theressa [my girlfriend at the time] came over at 11:00. Today was the final reckoning. We'd spent as
much time together as was humanly possible in the month and a half that we've known each other, so we sat around taking in the fact that it was all over for two years. Since I've known her, I've loved her as much as I could possibly love another human being.

March 20th, 1990. Theressa watched my plane until I disappeared into the clouds. She held back the tears as she walked away...I love Theressa.

Tuesday, April 23, 1991. Got another letter from Theressa, the silly wench. She doesn't know where to quit.......If I ditch her now, I can't wring her neck eight months down the line. That's worth waiting for.

January 13th, 1992. Got another letter from that bitch Theressa. She doesn't know when to quit! Most human beings know
the limits on common courtesy, but I guess [that] she's either inhuman or else a bit insane. What a wench.

Dr. Shades, you have to give us an update on Theressa. What happened to her? Where did she end up?

[Dr. Shades]

Dr. Shades, you have to give us an update on Theressa. What happened to her? Where did she end up?

Ha! She ended up marrying the guy she started dating toward the end of my mission. We ended up back in contact around 2014 or so thanks to the magic of Facebook. Now I'm real-life friends with both her and her husband, who just so happens to be comedian Rodney Norman. Nowadays she operates a rather successful home inspection company back in New England. A year and a half ago they stayed with me for a few weeks in my guest bedroom. We'll often meet up when one or the other of them is back in town.

So, yeah!