Wife Of Mission President Blogs About Missionary's Depression

[MichelleD]

Deleted.  We don't want to add to the spreading of such private information.

[Scott Lloyd]

This is making the rounds on several other websites and boards. It's a post made by a mission president's wife containing information about the depression (and other issues) their missionaries are experiencing.

How reliable is this? Is it posted anonymously?

Edited May 7, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

In one sense educating people is a good idea, but I do believe this is too much personal info...what if one of the missionaries see it? It could very well feel like betrayal even with the love being expressed.

Given that, it also seems inappropriate to post it here. Perhaps edit it out and then just post the concern instead?

[Scott Lloyd]

In one sense educating people is a good idea, but I do believe this is too much personal info...what if one of the missionaries see it? It could very well feel like betrayal even with the love being expressed.

Given that, it also seems inappropriate to post it here. Perhaps edit it out and then just post the concern instead?

Agreed. If it's inappropriate, it ought not be given yet more traction here.

[ALarson]

How reliable is this? Is it posted anonymously?

I've seen it too and this blog is for real.  This post was made last September, but there are recent blog entries as well.

 

  http://coloradodenversouthmission.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/did-that-really-just-happen.html

 

Edited to add that I hope it gets removed from being online ASAP.  Why is she writing a public blog about this?  

Edited May 7, 2014 by ALarson

[Leelee]

My son came home early from his mission with mental health issues.  His President was so kind and wonderful to him and to us.  It was a very scary and difficult time.   I can't imagine reading a blog this detailed by his wife.  There is so much heartache involved to the missionary and family and this would feel like our privacy was violated.  I would be so hurt (and probably angry) to read this account about my son.  I'm surprised there is time to do a blog as a Mission President's wife.  I hope she closes it down.  

[ALarson]

My son came home early from his mission with mental health issues.  His President was so kind and wonderful to him and to us.  It was a very scary and difficult time.   I can't imagine reading a blog this detailed by his wife.  There is so much heartache involved to the missionary and family and this would feel like our privacy was violated.  I would be so hurt (and probably angry) to read this account about my son.  I'm surprised there is time to do a blog as a Mission President's wife.  I hope she closes it down.  

I have a nephew who just came home early from his mission due to depression.  It's been horrible for him and his parents (and his siblings too).  This poor kid is really beating himself up for failing, but he's been shown a great deal of love from everyone involved and we just want him to get well.  Their home ward has been wonderful to him.

[Leelee]

I'm glad your nephew is receiving the support he needs.  The ward support is vital.  My son has been home several years now and is a great husband, father, and Priesthood leader.  I'm proud of him.  He still has moments where he feels guilty about leaving but they are fleeting and not often.  These young people need our support and love.  Prayers for your family.

[ALarson]

I'm glad your nephew is receiving the support he needs.  The ward support is vital.  My son has been home several years now and is a great husband, father, and Priesthood leader.  I'm proud of him.  He still has moments where he feels guilty about leaving but they are fleeting and not often.  These young people need our support and love.  Prayers for your family.

Thank you Leelee.  I'm so glad to hear that your son is doing well too.

[Duncan]

I hate to say but mental illness, homesickness, missionaries running off (remember First Pres. member Jesse Gause?) has been going one for decades and decades now, I think we just hear more of it because of social media. We had in our ward another sister missionary go home last week. That makes 6 for our ward since July. I love them all and I sincerely hope them all well. I keep in contact with all of them and they seem to be doing okay

Edited May 7, 2014 by Duncan

[Calm]

Has anyone here written her and suggested it is sharing too much private info? Or know if someone has? Don't want to dog pile...

Edited May 7, 2014 by calmoriah

[omni]

I hate to say but mental illness, homesickness, missionaries running off (remember First Pres. member Jesse Gause?) has been going one for decades and decades now, I think we just hear more of it because of social media. We had in our ward another sister missionary go home last week. That makes 6 for our ward since July. I love them all and I sincerely hope them all well. I keep in contact with all of them and they seem to be doing okay

 

Duncan, what are you guys doing to those poor missionaries?   It seems like every month another one is going home.  It's great though the support you're able to give them after they return home.

[ALarson]

Has anyone here written her and suggested it is sharing too much private info? Or know if someone has? Don't want to dog pile...

I agree.  If you read through some of her posts (which I have been doing), you can tell that she has an incredible amount of love for the missionaries.  I wonder if she even realizes that everyone can see this blog?  Maybe she just intends for it to be for family and friends.  

[Calm]

I hate to say but mental illness, homesickness, missionaries running off (remember First Pres. member Jesse Gause?) has been going one for decades and decades now, I think we just hear more of it because of social media. We had in our ward another sister missionary go home last week. That makes 6 for our ward since July. I love them all and I sincerely hope them all well. I keep in contact with all of them and they seem to be doing okay

You are a good guy, Duncan.

[Calm]

I agree.  If you read through some of her posts (which I have been doing), you can tell that she has an incredible amount of love for the missionaries.  I wonder if she even realizes that everyone can see this blog?  Maybe she just intends for it to be for family and friends.

I never thought the blog I helped with would get so much publicity. I would not be surprised at all if that is what she thinks.

[Duncan]

Duncan, what are you guys doing to those poor missionaries?   It seems like every month another one is going home.  It's great though the support you're able to give them after they return home.

 

 

seriously! our ward corr meetings are like a therapy session, and one of the elders here calls me 3 times a week usually to talk about his problems and things. It is sad but it happens everywhere. I tend to think...that some people think that going on a mission will solve all their problems which to use the words of Pres. Hinckley "it just doesn't seem to work that way" and to some going on a mission is all fun and games and parties until the rubber hits the road. Like one of our sisters here at her very first dinner appt. went to the washroom at a member's house and had to move an adult diaper from the sink to wash her hands and sometime later that same member lady came to the door wearing only her diaper and nothing else and the sisters nearly fell over in total grossness, like where in the go on a mission brochure does it say that?!

Edited May 7, 2014 by Duncan

[juliann]

Has anyone here written her and suggested it is sharing too much private info? Or know if someone has? Don't want to dog pile...

Can you find a way to do it?  There are pictures and names in later blogs, these people could easily be identified by determined parties.  She seems like a wonderful lady who just doesn't realize how far things can travel on the internet and how these stories have the potential to haunt these young people later in life.  It is also not advisable to be giving everyone in the world open access to pictures and names in general.

Edited May 7, 2014 by juliann

[ALarson]

Can you find a way to do it?  There are pictures and names in later blogs, these people could easily be identified by determined parties.  She seems like a wonderful lady who just doesn't realize how far things can travel on the internet and how these stories have the potential to haunt these young people later in life.  It is also not advisable to be giving everyone in the world open access to pictures and names in general.

Some of her blog posts are signed "Love, Mom" and I have to believe that she has no idea that everyone can read her blog.  People have started posting comments though so she'll know when she reads them.  

[juliann]

The comments are disgusting and a good example of why you never disclose personal information on the internet. They are going to crucify her and everyone she wrote about, these people who care soooo much about the privacy of the people they are going to expose to do it.  I'm sure it was a personal blog (I read a couple of other personal blogs in the same place)  and she doesn't know about privacy settings and such.

[JulieM]

Some of her blog posts are signed "Love, Mom" and I have to believe that she has no idea that everyone can read her blog.

Well, that makes sense then (if she thinks she's only writing to her family or kids). Even her comments about her daughter are maybe done in jest (even though they still seem insensitive especially considering that she said them to an investigator). We should give her the benefit of the doubt here.

Edited May 8, 2014 by JulieM

[Kenngo1969]

I was one of those "problem" missionaries ...  I never ran off, hit anybody, was committed (to a psych ward, I mean! ), blatantly broke any other rules, et cetera, et cetera.  Still, I was probably a liability to more than one of my companions, in more ways than one.  (That, of course, is something of a two-way street.)  It can be a fine line, I think, attempting to determine who will succeed, who will have only a minimum of problems, et cetera.   There's an old saying that "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."  Well, news flash: life happens to missionaries, too. I went.  I served.  I did my best, given the various challenging circumstances I was in and the various challenging people I dealt with.  I recently rewatched Richard Dutcher's compelling film about mission life, God's Army, and I'm working on a blog post about the film incorporating some experiences and reminiscences from my own mission.

 

Here's an excerpt:

 

I've always been somewhat ambivalent about my mission in many ways, chiefly because I, in my puniness, had never felt equal to the massive mantle that I, as a missionary, had had placed upon my shoulders.  God's Army was the first treatment of missionary work I ever experienced that made me exclaim to myself, "Finally!  Somebody gets it!"  Someone finally stared the fact that missions aren't all sweetness and light in the face and said, "So what?  That's OK.  There's still value in the valiant-if-imperfect efforts of valiant-if-imperfect people to spread the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ -- to stand as witnesses, just as Moroni did."

 

 

I understand the purposes of the approach taken in the Missionary Training Center and in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints production Labor of Love.  I support those purposes wholeheartedly.  But I still think that we do our prospective missionaries a disservice, if-and-when we don't level with them and tell them something like this: "You'll get a lot of doors slammed in your face.  You'll also face a lot of closed minds, and closed hearts.  And even some of the people you help to gain a testimony of the truth of what you teach won't have the courage to act upon that testimony by entering on the path to eternal life by going into the waters of baptism.  Your job is to bring people to Christ ... as far as they are willing to come.  You will have problems with companions, and probably with other members of the Church of Jesus Christ; they'll have problems with you."  When we talk of Doctrine and Covenants 18, often, we overemphasize the "how-great-shall-be-your-joy-if-ye-shall-bring-many-souls-unto-me" clause, while not emphasizing the "if-ye-should-labor-all-your-days-and-should-bring-save-it-be-ONE-soul-unto-me-how-great-shall-be-your-joy" clause not nearly enough.

 

My $0.02.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Kenngo1969

[juliann]

It is closed now. Does she have any protection against those threatening to use screenshots?

[JulieM]

It is closed now. Does she have any protection against those threatening to use screenshots?

Well, that's good (that it's closed). I don't know what protection bloggers have regarding their public posts but I hope she'll be left alone.

[Calm]

And hopefully the missionaries referenced will be as well and none of their "friends" thinks it is the height of humour to spread it around.

[Calm]

where in the go on a mission brochure does it say that?!

I think they should use your mission in a training film and show it to all prospective missionaries to ensure that only those who want to go will apply.

I can imagine the elder missionaries going "thank goodness it wasn't me at the door"...probably the rest of the sister missionaries as well and all of them scribbling in their notebooks furiously significant warnings next to her name.

Edited May 8, 2014 by calmoriah