Mission status updates?

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

Some missions do this, some still don't.   The biggest catch is when you have really short or tall missionaries.

My nephew rode his bike everywhere in the Tallahassee Florida mission and it affected his back so much he had to get medical care and come home. He may have had a preexisting condition, he was a daredevil.

[jkwilliams]

10 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

My nephew rode his bike everywhere in the Tallahassee Florida mission and it affected his back so much he had to get medical care and come home. He may have had a preexisting condition, he was a daredevil.

Imagine trying to ride a bike in La Paz.

\

 

[Tacenda]

9 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Imagine trying to ride a bike in La Paz.

\

 

No thanks!

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

No thanks!

At 12,000 feet, it's hard enough to walk there!

[secondclasscitizen]

3 hours ago, Amulek said:

Seriously?

 

Yep. I didn’t go and thirty plus years later I still get the semi-annual reminder of what a disappointment I am to the family. I was offered a car and college to be paid for if I did the mission. I refused and went in the military instead. Now I find out all these yrs later they have been paying for my sibling kids’ missions but not my kids. Oh well I’m sure that’s part of the pay pack for the eternal disappointment. That’s better than getting locked out of the house when I was 19 I guess. The army treated me very well. 

Edited May 27, 2021 by secondclasscitizen

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, secondclasscitizen said:

Yep. I didn’t go and thirty plus years later I still get the semi-annual reminder of what a disappointment I am to the family. I was offered a car and college to be paid for if I did the mission. I refused and went in the military instead. Now I find out all these yrs later they have been paying for my sibling kids’ missions but not my kids. Oh well I’m sure that’s part of the pay pack for the eternal disappointment. That’s better than getting locked out of the house when I was 19 I guess. The army treated me very well. 

I wish I could say I'd never heard anything like this before. What is wrong with people? I'm sure in other respects, your family may be lovely, but really, that sucks.

[secondclasscitizen]

31 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I wish I could say I'd never heard anything like this before. What is wrong with people? I'm sure in other respects, your family may be lovely, but really, that sucks.

Yea well I was told I’d pay for it for the rest of my life. Didn’t know literally lol. Oh well I can’t say I wasn’t told. Interestingly none of my siblings have ever mentioned how generous my parents actually are. They must have been told the conditions. 
 

my dad was sp when I joined up with the army so I imagine it was pretty humiliating. I prob deserve it.

Edited May 27, 2021 by secondclasscitizen

[jkwilliams]

Just now, secondclasscitizen said:

Yea well I was told I’d pay for it for the rest of my life. Didn’t know literally lol. Oh well I can’t say I wasn’t told.

I'm glad my parents put zero pressure on me to serve a mission. 

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, secondclasscitizen said:

Yea well I was told I’d pay for it for the rest of my life. Didn’t know literally lol. Oh well I can’t say I wasn’t told. Interestingly none of my siblings have ever mentioned how generous my parents actually are. They must have been told the conditions. 
 

my dad was sp when I joined up with the army so I imagine it was pretty humiliating. I prob deserve it.

Do you know that Oaks and Nelson didn't serve missions? And it wasn't because they were called to war either. As far as I can tell. Your parents need to get a grip. Or hopefully that didn't come off sounding disrespectful, it's not their fault that things said by previous leaders cause this sense of duty, such as saying that every worthy young man should fulfill a mission, and the Lord expects it of them. ETA: Oops maybe Nelson did get called to war. Also, Monson didn't serve a mission and chose to enroll in college instead. Also, I'm not seeing that Hunter served a mission either. He's not a prophet but Uchtdorf volunteered to be a fighter pilot instead of serving a mission.

And this of Oaks doesn't pass the snuff test to me, not serving a mission because he might be called to war?

After high school, Oaks attended BYU, where he occasionally served as a radio announcer at high school basketball games. At one of these basketball games during his freshman year at BYU, he met June Dixon, a senior at the high school, whom he married during his junior year at BYU.^[5] Due to his membership in the Utah National Guard and the threat of being called up to serve in the Korean War, Oaks was unable to serve as an LDS Church missionary.^[14]:33[26] In 1952, Oaks married Dixon in the Salt Lake Temple. He graduated from BYU in accounting with high honors in 1954.^[27][28]

Oaks subsequently attended the University of Chicago Law School on a three-year full tuition National Honor Scholarship, where he served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review during his third year.^{[14]:33[29][30]} Oaks graduated with a Juris Doctor cum laude in 1957.^[27]

Edited May 27, 2021 by Tacenda

[ttribe]

37 minutes ago, secondclasscitizen said:

Yea well I was told I’d pay for it for the rest of my life. Didn’t know literally lol. Oh well I can’t say I wasn’t told. Interestingly none of my siblings have ever mentioned how generous my parents actually are. They must have been told the conditions. 
 

my dad was sp when I joined up with the army so I imagine it was pretty humiliating. I prob deserve it.

Uh, no.  You don't 'deserve' to be treated unfairly year after year simply because you chose to not serve a mission when you were 19.

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I do remember my neighbor working on the Sentra a lot. I want to say it was about a 1996 or so. 

As for the Land Cruiser, it was pretty indestructible, except when my successor as travel secretary took it up into the Andes on a Wednesday and hit a rock, knocking the oil pan off. 

Remembering the area I was serving in, I'm guessing we had our sentra in 1998 so probably not the same one.  Tragic that they made two of them.  

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

Remembering the area I was serving in, I'm guessing we had our sentra in 1998 so probably not the same one.  Tragic that they made two of them.  

Well, it must have been around 1999 when they bought it, but I figured it was a few years old. But yeah, the thought of two purple Sentras ...

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, secondclasscitizen said:

Yep. I didn’t go and thirty plus years later I still get the semi-annual reminder of what a disappointment I am to the family. I was offered a car and college to be paid for if I did the mission. I refused and went in the military instead. Now I find out all these yrs later they have been paying for my sibling kids’ missions but not my kids. Oh well I’m sure that’s part of the pay pack for the eternal disappointment. That’s better than getting locked out of the house when I was 19 I guess. The army treated me very well. 

No disrespect intended but your parents sound really messed up.

[ttribe]

Just now, bluebell said:

No disrespect intended but your parents sound really messed up.

That about sums things up! 🤣

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

No disrespect intended but your parents sound really messed up.

Back when I was young men's president, we had a kid in our ward who had severe social anxiety. The bishop kept pushing me to get him out to church, so I visited him a lot, but he maybe came to church two or three times in the 5 years we lived there. I was shocked to find out he had submitted his papers to serve a mission. He went to Tennessee or somewhere like that, IIRC. He barely made it through the MTC with every day a major panic attack. I think he was in the mission field for about 10 days, and by then he wouldn't get out of bed. So, he came home, but his parents were so embarrassed they didn't tell anyone he was home, and wouldn't let him out of the house in fear the neighbors might see he was home. They and the bishop asked me to talk him into going back to the mission because he had connected with me. I said no. The bishop was pretty mad at me, but I couldn't do that. 

In short, some people suck. I am still good friends with my former bishop, but he was dead wrong on that occasion, and the parents behaved abysmally. 

[Amulek]

38 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

And this of Oaks doesn't pass the snuff test to me, not serving a mission because he might be called to war?

How do you expect an observant Latter-day Saint to pass a "snuff" test? That would be against the Word of Wisdom for crying out loud (unless used as an herb for bruises or possibly for sick cattle I suppose).

That being said, here's some relevant information from the church about missionary service during the Korean war (i.e., back when Oaks was serving in the national guard):

“During the Korean conflict and Vietnam War, the Church voluntarily placed restrictions on the number of missionaries sent out from each ward. A bishop could recommend one young man every six months for missionary service,” said Mormon Church spokesman Eric Hawkins. “Young men who had received induction notices or whose draft number was likely to be called were not recommended for missionary service.” (source; trigger warning: most of the story is about Romney).

If you have any evidence to suggest that Dallin H. Oaks was either unworthy or unwilling to serve a mission, you're welcome to share it.

Barring that, I'm going to suggest that for someone who has served the Lord full time for the last 37 years (and who will continue to do so until the day he dies), I kind of think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Don't you?

 

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

How do you expect an observant Latter-day Saint to pass a "snuff" test? That would be against the Word of Wisdom for crying out loud (unless used as an herb for bruises or possibly for sick cattle I suppose).

That being said, here's some relevant information from the church about missionary service during the Korean war (i.e., back when Oaks was serving in the national guard):

“During the Korean conflict and Vietnam War, the Church voluntarily placed restrictions on the number of missionaries sent out from each ward. A bishop could recommend one young man every six months for missionary service,” said Mormon Church spokesman Eric Hawkins. “Young men who had received induction notices or whose draft number was likely to be called were not recommended for missionary service.” (source; trigger warning: most of the story is about Romney).

If you have any evidence to suggest that Dallin H. Oaks was either unworthy or unwilling to serve a mission, you're welcome to share it.

Barring that, I'm going to suggest that for someone who has served the Lord full time for the last 37 years (and who will continue to do so until the day he dies), I kind of think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Don't you?

 

Just think it important for men who don't serve a mission to not have to go through hell because of it and think that maybe during Oaks time he probably didn't hear the messages that young men hear today.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Tacenda

[Scott Lloyd]

53 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Just think it important for men who don't serve a mission to not have to go through hell because of it and think that maybe during Oaks time he probably didn't hear the messages that young men hear today.

So it’s a matter of presenting on your part, then. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

16 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

If you were to sum up the problem in a word or two, what would it be? Excessive regimentation, perhaps? Unrighteous dominion?

Toxic culture? To be honest, I don't really know. I think the following anecdotes may help explain:

During my first week, I was summoned to an interview with my branch president. He told me that the Holy Ghost had told him that I was hiding serious sins that I hadn't repented of, and he was giving me the opportunity to come clean. I was stunned and assured him that was not the case. He wouldn't accept my assurance, so he spent the rent of our 'interview' trying to stare me down and intimidate me. Finally, he let me go, but then I was back in his office for a repeat at least two more times. To this day, I don't know if this was some shtick he tried on all the missionaries in his branch (I never thought to mention this to anyone else at the time!) or if he still hadn't learnt to discern the genuine voice of the Spirit. In either case, it was dark and creepy. The only thing I could relate it to was one of those old WWII movies where the gestapo tries to force a confession. It left me feeling yucky, and it still does. I've had that kind of experience with no other priesthood leader.

One morning the queue for breakfast was especially long and slow, so despite having arrived at the canteen exactly on time, we only got our trays of food five minutes before class was to start. The other Elders in my district all suggested that we just throw the food away so that we wouldn't be late to class. I had been raised that the sin next to murder was wasting food, and my previous experiences in the Church had all been characterised by reasonableness, so I suggested we just eat super quickly whilst standing up and then hurry to class. As a result, we were late by about three minutes. Our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes berating us for our 'disobedience', telling us that we had wasted the 'Lord's time' and that we would never amount to anything as missionaries. I found the whole thing bizarre and over the top, and I still do, but he was like that all the time. At the same time, he would happily spend 10 minutes of class time giving interested Elders sports score updates from the night or weekend before.

One of the essential elements of my personal conversion had been learning the difference between things spiritual and things theatrical, so I often struggled through 'large group meetings', which were scripted, rehearsed mini-performances by what I always assumed were BYU theatre students, but I never said anything and politely listened/took notes. During one, our district leader decided to move the swing-up desk attached to his chair in the lecture theatre, and this made a very funny sound. Our row and the rows both in front and behind us spontaneously laughed. One of the sanctimonious BYU students on stage took the microphone, stopped the performance, and called us out. He told us that we had driven the Spirit out of the theatre and invited us to consider our sins. He was visibly and audibly angry, and that was the moment when the Spirit left.

The MTC president sounded like a televangelist, and to be honest, that's how he made me feel, too.

On more than one occasion, I was told by MTC leaders/workers that if I didn't look on women with lust, I wasn't a 'real man'.

I fell sick with an infection during my time at the MTC. The doctor at the clinic told me I needed rest to get better. I was told by others that I was just lazy, so I kept going. As a result, I was still sick when I left the MTC and began serving in my first area.

Quote

Also, from what you know or have observed (I know you’ve spoken of working closely with missionaries), would you say the overall MTC experience has changed (hopefully for the better) since you were a missionary?

I certainly hope so! I haven't really heard any other missionaries share the same complaints about the MTC. I have, however, heard a few others.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

11 hours ago, Rain said:

I know so many people hated the missionary guide, but I loved it.  What I found with it was usually when they didn't like it they were not using it well.  The biggest thing I saw was trying to force commitments, but almost always I found that people were failing to do the work before it - finding and resolving concerns.  

It has been a game changer for me.  It started to teach me to teach the gospel simply.  Not to be boring with it, but to teach it well.  I would have thought that would be easy, but I find many people struggle with it.

I agree 100 per cent with everything you have written here!

[Hamba Tuhan]

10 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

A few months ago, a guy from our MTC branch Facebook friended me. He told me about his days at BYU teaching at the MTC and going to gay bars in Salt Lake on the weekends, then his later gigs as a go-go dancer at a bar and a drag show, and hanging out with Boy George in the late 80s.

This is a bit before my time at the MTC, but based on my experiences there, I'm not really surprised by what I've bolded ...

[let’s roll]

I was there when the current Provo facility was dedicated.  It was called the LTM at that time.  Can’t remember if the name change took place then or subsequently.  

My experience was largely favorable.  The instructors were friendly and low key.  My companion who was older and a college graduate was down to earth.  I had the chance to play volleyball a few times with Steve Craig who was there at the same time.

I picked up the language quickly and was thus mostly left to myself to keep doing what was working for me.  If we were on pace in learning the discussion we were allowed to go to football games.  I don’t recall if my Branch President ever spoke to me although someone invited me to speak in Sacrament meeting.

I did struggle with the same starchy diet I had first experienced at the Morris Center at DT.

 

[secondclasscitizen]

8 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I wish I could say I'd never heard anything like this before. What is wrong with people? I'm sure in other respects, your family may be lovely, but really, that sucks.

Yea they are are a good family probably just binged too much on the koolaid. They were so extreme back in the day i got grounded for drinking a coke. You know cuz its against the wow. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

18 minutes ago, let’s roll said:

I did struggle with the same starchy diet I had first experienced at the Morris Center at DT.

When I was at the MTC, the hot food was all starch and fatty meat (lovingly prepared by Islander women who, no doubt, meant well). If it hadn't been for the salad bar, I would have starved. I only ate three hot meals, one each Sunday.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[secondclasscitizen]

6 hours ago, Amulek said:

“During the Korean conflict and Vietnam War, the Church voluntarily placed restrictions on the number of missionaries sent out from each ward. A bishop could recommend one young man every six months for missionary service,” said Mormon Church spokesman Eric Hawkins. “Young men who had received induction notices or whose draft number was likely to be called were not recommended for missionary service.” (source; trigger warning: most of the story is about Romney).

If you have any evidence to suggest that Dallin H. Oaks was either unworthy or unwilling to serve a mission, you're welcome to share it.

Barring that, I'm going to suggest that for someone who has served the Lord full time for the last 37 years (and who will continue to do so until the day he dies), I kind of think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Don't you?

 

The restriction was because of the draft obviously. Funny thing is the past 20 yrs we have been in a war but I guarantee you  most mission aged males wont be given a pass if they go military instead of a mission right now or even just after 9/11. Im sure it happens and I know only one who entered the military in any ward I have been in and it was right in the middle of the iraq/Afghanistan thing. Lets just say the buzz around the ward was not kind to him and it was pretty open. It is not an acceptable alternative to mission service. I think the only time it is is if there is a draft. 

Edited May 28, 2021 by secondclasscitizen
spelling