Missionary Announcement at Church Yesterday

[cdowis]

Does the "support network" include girlfriends waiting at home?

[Gray]

5 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Does the "support network" include girlfriends waiting at home?

No, by support network I mean immediate family. 

[cdowis]

2 minutes ago, Gray said:

No, by support network I mean immediate family. 

 

Quote

I would guess this kind of rule contributes to people having breakdowns on their mission. Put people in a pressure cooker, isolate them from their support networks, and watch the negative consequences roll in. 

And your suggestion of frequent phone access to immediate family, should this include their active involvement in serious, personal issues at home? Should the mission monitor these conversations to ensure that they do not affect the attention of the missionary to his duties.  Or is it more sensible to restrict these calls.  Of course, there is already a policy in place if there is a dire emergency such as death in the family, but there is a danger that these frequent phone calls to the "support group" could severely affect the missionary in family affairs.

I think the mission pres and missionary dept really have the experience to make reasonable rules.

[Gray]

8 minutes ago, cdowis said:

 

And your suggestion of frequent phone access to immediate family, should this include their active involvement in serious, personal issues at home? Should the mission monitor these conversations to ensure that they do not affect the attention of the missionary to his duties.  Or is it more sensible to restrict these calls.  Of course, there is already a policy in place if there is a dire emergency such as death in the family, but there is a danger that these frequent phone calls to the "support group" could severely affect the missionary in family affairs.

I think the mission pres and missionary dept really have the experience to make reasonable rules.

I think one call home a week wouldn't provide a serious distraction, and would act as a pressure valve to keep missionaries more even keeled. No need to monitor conversations - that would be creepy and counter productive. 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I think one call home a week wouldn't provide a serious distraction, and would act as a pressure valve to keep missionaries more even keeled. No need to monitor conversations - that would be creepy and counter productive. 

Our missionary is allowed to email us once a week. We, on the other hand, may write as many letters to him as we like.

I'm hard pressed to think of anything in terms of maintaining his emotional stability that could be accomplished with one phone call a week that is not already being handled with our weekly written communications.

As for the argument that this rule isolates him from his "support networks," I'm having a hard time taking that seriously.

Edited October 24, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[waveslider]

4 hours ago, cdowis said:

Does the "support network" include girlfriends waiting at home?

That kind of support network saved one of my companions, and I, a lot of problems. They turned out to be a good support network..... We were jumped by a gang that lived in the abandon warehouse across the street from the mission pad we were in, when we were coming home once. What they didn't know was that I used to box and my comp. used to rope calves at rodeos before our missions (there was plenty of clothes line set up in the yard for laundry) After subduing them we asked them why they attacked us? They told us that it was because they thought we were gay. They had never seen two young men living in the same house before, and didn't understand our situation. We both had pictures of our girlfriends, who were waiting at home for us, in our wallets, and gladly showed them to the attackers. 

It was Summer time so we had our gang over once a week to sit on the lawn and watch slide show presentations against the wall. We would pop a bunch of popcorn and let them enjoy things like, "The First Vision," while we inserted the cassette tapes and turned the film nob at each beep sound, and passed huge shopping bags full of the buttery pop corn all around. Those were some fun times, but I'm quite certain that it wouldn't have been very fun, for the rest of our stay there, without those pictures to prove that we weren't gay.

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 hours ago, Gray said:

I suppose there are rules I would change for different reasons. I would change the rules on the way they dress not because they're a significant challenge to obey, but because they put a barrier between the missionary and the people they're trying to teach.

Regarding the daily schedule (page 14 in the manual), I would make that more of a suggestion...

OK, so it isn't actually about the inability to keep the rules rather handily but rather your dislike of certain rules. Got it.

[Gray]

17 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Our missionary is allowed to email us once a week. We, on the other hand, may write as many letters to him as we like.

I'm hard pressed to think of anything in terms of maintaining his emotional stability that could be accomplished with one phone call a week that is not already being handled with our weekly written communications.

As for the argument that this rule isolates him from his "support networks," I'm having a hard time taking that seriously.

Perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to be a missionary. Certainly you can't have a real conversation over email or snail mail, especially with the kinds of emails/letters missionaries are encouraged to write. 

[Gray]

13 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

OK, so it isn't actually about the inability to keep the rules rather handily but rather your dislike of certain rules. Got it.

Some of the rules are counter productive but easy to follow. But no one can perfectly follow all of them. 

[Guest]

On October 17, 2016 at 11:01 AM, HappyJackWagon said:

Yes, out of state and possibly even out of country though it sounded like foreign missions would be reserved for longer term missionaries for reasons of transportation expense.

IF it's true I think this will be HUGE. I've reached out to my SP to see if he can tell me anything about it but I haven't heard back.

Shot mission out of country would not be practical. Many missionaries start their missions in the U.S. for a few months while their visa's are obtained. In U.S. or in country of orgin, out of State can work well, as they can be reached in hours in flight, and no new paperwork is needed. Countries like Russia and China, one may not travel outside of approved zones or was we call States. 

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to be a missionary. Certainly you can't have a real conversation over email or snail mail, especially with the kinds of emails/letters missionaries are encouraged to write. 

No, I haven't forgotten. One of my most vivid memories of missionary life is the thrill that always came with receiving a letter from home. But a weekly phone call instead of a letter would not have made any significant difference in my emotional stability and health.

And I have had better, more worthwhile, uplifting and edifying conversations with my son via email while he has been on his mission than I ever did when he was at home. I am confident this has been promoted, not hindered, by his writing "the kinds of emails/letters missionaries are encouraged to write."

I expect this improved communication to carry over when his mission is concluded, and I attribute that to the growth and closeness his mission experience has brought to us both.

 

[Gray]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

No, I haven't forgotten. One of my most vivid memories of missionary life is the thrill that always came with receiving a letter from home. But a weekly phone call instead of a letter would not have made any significant difference in my emotional stability and health.

Only you can speak for you, but I believe it would be beneficial for many missionaries.

 

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

And I have had better, more worthwhile, uplifting and edifying conversations with my son via email while he has been on his mission than I ever did when he was at home. I am confident this has been promoted, not hindered, by his writing "the kinds of emails/letters missionaries are encouraged to write."

I expect this improved communication to carry over when his mission is concluded, and I attribute that to the growth and closeness his mission experience has brought to us both.

I don't know about you, but when I was a missionary we were encouraged not to talk about any problems, including health or emotional problems. We were told to only talk about uplifting things, like how true the gospel was. I was not encouraged to be "real" in my letters home. Probably that left my parents with a false impression of what my experience was really like. 

 

 

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

No, I haven't forgotten. One of my most vivid memories of missionary life is the thrill that always came with receiving a letter from home. But a weekly phone call instead of a letter would not have made any significant difference in my emotional stability and health.

 

It would have been horrible for me to have weekly phone calls.  I needed the separation from my family to help mature into an independent woman.  I hated it in many ways (and was homesick for my entire mission) but it was very important to my emotional development.  It was so hard, but at the same time it was a gift.  It taught me to rely on myself and God to solve the problems that came my way and that lesson has been invaluable as my life as progressed.

[rongo]

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[rongo]

11 minutes ago, Gray said:

I don't know about you, but when I was a missionary we were encouraged not to talk about any problems, including health or emotional problems. We were told to only talk about uplifting things, like how true the gospel was. I was not encouraged to be "real" in my letters home. Probably that left my parents with a false impression of what my experience was really like. 

I know that this will make some heads explode, but I ask my outgoing missionaries to write actual letters home to their parents, rather than just whipping off a 20 minute email. Letters, actual letters mean a lot to parents, too! I often wrote letters for 3+ hours on my P-day, and these saved letters are actually better than journal entries. 

My 2nd companion, after my trainer, was a native German struggling with his testimony. I was his first junior companion, and he was going home in two months, and while it was very hard (he refused to speak English with me, even though he could; he made me drill down deep and explain my testimony to him often --- not to be a jerk, but because he was tortured and wanted to know how I could know and believe what I did), we became very close and he was one of my favorite companions. Unbeknownst to me, my mission president had written my parents and told them about my assignment, and told them that they would probably get letters that would concern them (about my struggles, concerns, hardships, etc.). He encouraged them to help buoy me up and not to worry about me; that I could handle it and would be all right. 

I'm thankful, a) that I wasn't coddled, and b) that I wasn't discouraged from "being real" in my letters home. 

[rongo]

23 hours ago, cdowis said:

Does the "support network" include girlfriends waiting at home?

I had a hypochondriac companion who didn't like to work. The other elders in our city consisted of a dud senior companion and a sharp greenie. I ended up taking his greenie most of the time so our two dud companions could rot together and do nothing (the mission president knew about it, and approved). The greenie was really a sharp missionary, and we got in on only his third door ever and taught a 1st discussion. Boy, was he excited about that!  

Our mission president gave us permission to go to Christmas Eve midnight mass at the Catholic Church (our companions had no interest; no interest in anything, really), and on our way home (the buses weren't running any more, so we had to walk) he talked about how agonized he was that his girlfriend had stopped writing him (the writing on the wall seemed from his description to be not good at all). He was consumed by this, and so I suggested we stop at a pay phone and call her and "lance this boil, once and for all" (the U.S. is 8 hours earlier, so it would be early Christmas Eve). She told him that she wanted to break up with him but didn't know how to tell him, and he had a good sob and was heartbroken. But, then it was out of his system and he moved on and was fine a day later. Had this continued to fester, it would have affected him and his work.

I would never have put up with continued contact due to homesickness or being unable to cut the ties, but sometimes you have to use initiative within the rules and do the right thing. From a rigid standpoint, I broke a mission rule, but we needed to get this behind us so that he could move on. I think God understood and approved . . .   

[Danzo]

One of the most important things I learned on my mission was when to break the letter of the rule to follow the spirit of the mission.

Often, it is easy for the missionaries to confuse rules with commandments.  Often the "rules" are just basic suggestions on things like schedule, dress, teaching style, etc.  These, can and should be discarded when they interfere with the spirit of missionary work, which is to bring people to Christ.   Often, they think that strict obedience to the "rules" is a substitute for preaching the gospel.  Nobody should break the "rules" out of rebellion, or because they are uncomfortable, but they should be taught to recognize when the rules can be discarded to further the work of Christ.

One example of this was the last part of my mission, we, as a missionary companionship decided to stop taking a full P-day because we often had people we could see during that time.  Because of this, we often went shopping or took some time off during the week to do laundry or letter writing. In a technical sense, I guess you could say we were breaking the rules by not following the suggested schedule. But we were following the most important rule, "bring people to Christ"  That was one of my most successful areas.  (And yes the mission president knew what we were doing and had no problem with it.)

An example of missionaries letting the letter of the rule get in the way of doing missionary work happened recently in our area.   There was a young woman who was friends of our daughter who would go with her to church regularly.  We talked to her and she said she wanted to take the discussions and get baptized.   We then talked to the missionaries who told us they couldn't teach her because she lived outside of our ward boundaries.  We talked to the missionaries who worked in the area she lived in and they didn't want to teach her because she was attending our ward. Anyway, after about a year, we finally got sister missionaries that were willing to teach someone outside their area and I was able to baptize her and her mother a couple of months ago.   

The mission president, of course didn't mind a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Only you can speak for you, but I believe it would be beneficial for many missionaries.

 

I don't know about you, but when I was a missionary we were encouraged not to talk about any problems, including health or emotional problems. We were told to only talk about uplifting things, like how true the gospel was. I was not encouraged to be "real" in my letters home. Probably that left my parents with a false impression of what my experience was really like. 

 

 

No, I don't recall any directive like that. And I don't get that from my reading of handbook as it stands today.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

I know that this will make some heads explode, but I ask my outgoing missionaries to write actual letters home to their parents, rather than just whipping off a 20 minute email. Letters, actual letters mean a lot to parents, too! I often wrote letters for 3+ hours on my P-day, and these saved letters are actually better than journal entries. 

 

A good email is, in every meaningful sense, an actual letter. It can be easily filed away on a computer or printed out and filed away as a hard copy if one is of a mind to do so. Thus saved, an email can be just as good for archival purposes as a hand-written letter.

Unlike my letters to and from home which took a week or longer in transit when I was in Sweden, I can receive instant communication from my son in that same country. They mean as much to me as a handwritten letter would, and I like them better, knowing they are up-to-the-minute. I will wake up in the wee hours of Monday morning, knowing that our son's email will likely be in my in box. His digital letters can be easily copied and shared with extended family and close friends. And we can respond more quickly to unusual needs or requests he might have. I would be very loathe to give all that up for conventional pen-and-paper correspondence.

When ask your missionaries to do that, I hope you don't caste it as a requirement or forbid them from sending emails. That would be going way beyond the mark for a bishop. Were i in your ward, you would likely get some pushback from me as the father of a missionary serving on the other side of the world.

 

[rongo]

45 minutes ago, Danzo said:

One of the most important things I learned on my mission was when to break the letter of the rule to follow the spirit of the mission.

A few weeks before I went home, we got home from eating lunch with a member and a message was being left on our answering machine. In American English, a girl's voice said that she had read the Book of Mormon and wanted to be taught. We called her back. She was a foreign exchange student from Colorado who was miserable with her host family. Her boyfriend had given her a Book of Mormon when she left, and this caused a big argument with her parents, who didn't want her to bring it with her. During a trip to the French Riviera with her host family, she was absolutely miserable and read the Book of Mormon on the beach and had a powerful spiritual confirmation. It was hazy whether she lived in our mission or the Leipzig Mission, and we arranged to meet her at a train station in a town that we thought was in our mission (but ended up not being in our mission). We went to a corner of a schoolyard (to keep it public), and taught her the 1st and 2nd discussion, but had a much more in-depth discussion than usual. She was very spiritual and a very deep thinker with a lot of very thoughtful questions. Someone from the school came out and asked her if we were harassing her and if they should call the police (she was crying, but for good reasons), and she told him that she and we were fine. Her host family was very anti-Mormon and didn't want her to have any contact with us. 

She was lonely, and not liking school or the morals or standards, and we invited her to a youth dance. Her host father was very uptight about her going to any Mormon activity, especially since he was responsible for her well-being, and I promised him that we would personally pick her up at the train station, get her to the dance, and personally see that she safely got back on the late train home. This meant that, on that night, we were up after midnight getting her on the train and getting her back home. She had a wonderful time at the dance, and it was a shot in the arm and a morale boost for her to be with active LDS youth (they could not have been better ---- really enthusiastic and welcoming to the American girl, practicing their Gymnasium Englisch).

She gave us a card when I went home. I gave the card to my greenie, and kept a photocopy for myself:

The good accomplished seemed to outweigh/overrule the technical rules violations (curfew, out of mission, etc.).

 

Edited October 25, 2016 by rongo

[rongo]

18 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

A good email is, in every meaningful sense, an actual letter. It can be easily filed away on a computer or printed out and filed away as a hard copy if one is of a mind to do so. Thus saved, an email can be just as good for archival purposes as a hand-written letter.

Unlike my letters to and from home which took a week or longer in transit when I was in Sweden, I can receive instant communication from my son in that same country. They mean as much to me as a handwritten letter would, and I like them better, knowing they are up-to-the-minute. I will wake up in the wee hours of Monday morning, knowing that our son's email will likely be in my in box. His digital letters can be easily copied and shared with extended family and close friends. And we can respond more quickly to unusual needs or requests he might have. I would be very loathe to give all that up for conventional pen-and-paper correspondence.

When ask your missionaries to do that, I hope you don't caste it as a requirement or forbid them from sending emails. That would be going way beyond the mark for a bishop. Were i in your ward, you would likely get some pushback from me as the father of a missionary serving on the other side of the world.

 

I'm not so heavy-handed as to demand it as a requirement.  More, a recommendation and a suggestion. A little old-fashionedness to break up the hyper-reliance on tech. 

I had to give up writing letters to my parents in Poland this last year. It takes 3-4 weeks for letters to get there, so I've bitten the bullet and used email with them, as well. But I would use letters if I could . . .  

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

A few weeks before I went home, we got home from eating lunch with a member and a message was being left on our answering machine. In American English, a girl's voice said that she had read the Book of Mormon and wanted to be taught. We called her back. She was a foreign exchange student from Colorado who was miserable with her host family. Her boyfriend had given her a Book of Mormon when she left, and this caused a big argument with her parents, who didn't want her to bring it with her. During a trip to the French Riviera with her host family, she was absolutely miserable and read the Book of Mormon on the beach and had a powerful spiritual confirmation. It was hazy whether she lived in our mission or the Leipzig Mission, and we arranged to meet her at a train station in a town that we thought was in our mission (but ended up not being in our mission). We went to a corner of a schoolyard (to keep it public), and taught her the 1st and 2nd discussion, but had a much more in-depth discussion than usual. She was very spiritual and a very deep thinker with a lot of very thoughtful questions. Someone from the school came out and asked her if we were harassing her and if they should call the police (she was crying, but for good reasons), and she told him that she and we were fine. Her host family was very anti-Mormon and didn't want her to have any contact with us. 

She was lonely, and not liking school or the morals or standards, and we invited her to a youth dance. Her host father was very uptight about her going to any Mormon activity, especially since he was responsible for her well-being, and I promised him that we would personally pick her up at the train station, get her to the dance, and personally see that she safely got back on the late train home. This meant that, on that night, we were up after midnight getting her on the train and getting her back home. She had a wonderful time at the dance, and it was a shot in the arm and a morale boost for her to be with active LDS youth (they could not have been better ---- really enthusiastic and welcoming to the American girl, practicing their Gymnasium Englisch).

She gave us a card when I went home. I gave the card to my greenie, and kept a photocopy for myself:

The good accomplished seemed to outweigh/overrule the technical rules violations (curfew, out of mission, etc.).

 

Another example.  A couple of years ago I was serving in the Spanish branch. One of the youth kept bringing her boyfriend to church.  I was teaching the youth class and he was attending and asking a lot of questions.  The missionaries assigned to the branch ignored him because he was white and not Hispanic.  They kept saying that they were only supposed to teach Hispanics.   Finally, I asked the guy if he wanted to hear the discussions and he said that he did. I had to practically drag the missionaries into a room in the church and told them to start teaching him.  He ended up joining the church.  As far as I know no one was punished for breaking the rules.

I think, sometimes that the missionaries need to focus more on following the spirit, rather than following the handbook.

The handbook is definitely useful, It gives them a structure and guidance, but the spirit is going to show them a better way.

 

 

 

[ERMD]

On 10/25/2016 at 5:04 PM, rongo said:

A few weeks before I went home, we got home from eating lunch with a member and a message was being left on our answering machine. In American English, a girl's voice said that she had read the Book of Mormon and wanted to be taught. We called her back. She was a foreign exchange student from Colorado who was miserable with her host family. Her boyfriend had given her a Book of Mormon when she left, and this caused a big argument with her parents, who didn't want her to bring it with her. During a trip to the French Riviera with her host family, she was absolutely miserable and read the Book of Mormon on the beach and had a powerful spiritual confirmation. It was hazy whether she lived in our mission or the Leipzig Mission, and we arranged to meet her at a train station in a town that we thought was in our mission (but ended up not being in our mission). We went to a corner of a schoolyard (to keep it public), and taught her the 1st and 2nd discussion, but had a much more in-depth discussion than usual. She was very spiritual and a very deep thinker with a lot of very thoughtful questions. Someone from the school came out and asked her if we were harassing her and if they should call the police (she was crying, but for good reasons), and she told him that she and we were fine. Her host family was very anti-Mormon and didn't want her to have any contact with us. 

She was lonely, and not liking school or the morals or standards, and we invited her to a youth dance. Her host father was very uptight about her going to any Mormon activity, especially since he was responsible for her well-being, and I promised him that we would personally pick her up at the train station, get her to the dance, and personally see that she safely got back on the late train home. This meant that, on that night, we were up after midnight getting her on the train and getting her back home. She had a wonderful time at the dance, and it was a shot in the arm and a morale boost for her to be with active LDS youth (they could not have been better ---- really enthusiastic and welcoming to the American girl, practicing their Gymnasium Englisch).

She gave us a card when I went home. I gave the card to my greenie, and kept a photocopy for myself:

The good accomplished seemed to outweigh/overrule the technical rules violations (curfew, out of mission, etc.).

 

Did you every get any follow-up and learn what happened to her, what decisions she made?