Christmas can be a tough time to be a missionary, particularly now with the younger ages missionaries serve, and even more during a pandemic where contact with others is limited and risky. I recently had a call from the missionaries in our new area we moved, and they inquired about coming over to “share a message.”[1] I have a daughter this same age, and my heart goes out to the missionaries who are away from home for their first Christmas ever.
When I was a missionary, it wasn’t my first Christmas out on my own since sisters couldn’t serve until age 21. I had lived away from home for 3 years already, although I did fly home from college for the holidays. Still, I wasn’t wallowing in homesickness because my parents’ home had already become a place to visit, not a place to live. There’s a holiday special (half off) on my mission memoir, The Legend of Hermana Plunge. Here’s an excerpt from my Christmas chapter. I was serving on the island of La Palma, training my second missionary, and there were 3 other veteran elders in the district, all of whom were also training new missionaries. Our newbies had just arrived that month, so they were green indeed.
The holidays were approaching, and our families were on the other side of the world. With four new missionaries in our charge, we decided that we’d come together as a district to make things festive. We drew names for a $10 Secret Santa gift exchange and also agreed to do a white elephant gift exchange from something we found in our luggage. For decorations I made a construction paper Christmas tree that I taped to the wall of our chapl-piso.[2] Since we didn’t carry a lot of things in our luggage anyway, I was having a hard time thinking of what to put in the gift exchange.
“I literally have nothing good. I have photos. That’s about it. I could put in a picture of myself,” I said in exasperation as I tried to come up with an idea for the gift exchange.
“No, Hermana,” Banks said in her sweetest voice. “Not a picture of a white elephant.” Delicious burn! That’s when I knew we were going to be great friends.
The Legend of Hermana Plunge, Chapter 18
With brand new trainees, only one and a half active Church members, and a hostile yet very religious populace around us, we rationalized that we weren’t hurting anyone by having a holiday party as a district. Four of the elders were assigned to the other side of the island, but since they hadn’t yet found a house to rent, they were crashing with the elders who were just up the street from our place. We four veterans were all pretty good friends already, and our four newbies were still bewildered by everything happening around them. It was one of the best times I ever had on my mission and probably one of the best Christmas memories of my life.
Christmas Eve was on a Sunday, so we met after church for our meal and holiday party. We had a feast of turkey, ham, corn, and mashed potatoes that Elder Cooper made us with Millard’s cheesecake for dessert. We took turns reading the Christmas story together. Then we exchanged our real gifts and our white elephant gifts. . . I got a Calvin and Hobbes book with a missing cover than I had been coveting for months. As a non-scripture book without objectionable content, it had made the rounds through various missionaries.
We had a spontaneous water fight and got soaked. It was so rowdy that someone shattered one of the bathroom lights over the sink…
Elder McIvor said that our group was kind of like the Breakfast Club: a weird mix of misfits who eventually ended up bonding and being friends. He claimed the Judd Nelson role for himself. They agreed that with my short red hair I looked more like Molly Ringwald’s Claire role, but if one of us was the Princess, it had to be the statuesque Hermana Banks, so I was relegated to the Basket Case. Goldman, eager to be identified as a character, was deemed by consensus the janitor.
We decided to play a game of Spoons like a BYU Family Home Evening group might do. . . As the game began, Andrews very quickly started passing cards back to me that he knew I was collecting so we would be the first to get a set and grab spoons. It took the others a really long time to catch on that we were cheating.
The Legend of Hermana Plunge, Chapter 18
As the evening wound down, one of the veteran elders and acting Branch President of our teeny tiny branch fell asleep. He was a well-known sleep-talker, and Elder Cooper had lots of experience with a former sleep-talking companion. We took turns introducing hilarious suggestions to this elder while he was sleeping, revealing all sorts of judgmental thoughts he had about all of us and our leaders.
“Elder Millard, where are you?” Cooper asked.
He answered in a snippy voice, sounding like a disapproving Spanish grandmother, “I’m right here, in the piso. We need to get to work, Elder.”
“The Hermanas are here,” ventured Elder Cooper. I shot him a glare. “It’s Hermana Banks and Liscom.”
“Hermana Liscom’s nasty! She’s a flirt,” he said. So much for friendship!
Elder Cooper was giggling between his teeth, trying not to make a sound. “But she wants to give you a kiss,” he added. This seemed like it was going a bit far, but Elder Cooper was the sleep-talking expert, so I went along, touching Millard’s face lightly with two of my fingers.
Elder Millard furiously wiped away the “kisses,” protesting this un-missionary-like behavior. “Que va! (As if!) Stop it!” he cried, very alarmed, his distress increasing. I was afraid he was going to wake up if we didn’t dial it down.
Heightening the drama, Elder Cooper reintroduced himself into the dream. “Elder Millard, what happened? Did Hermana Liscom try to kiss you?”
“Yes, but I told her NO!” he cried with indignation.
Next, Elder McIvor jumped in. “Elder Millard, Hermana Banks is here. She needs a blessing.” This seemed like a much safer line of dream management.
“Que va! Tell her she needs to go on a diet,” he rejoined. Oof! So much for that. Apparently no one was safe.
I noticed Elder Andrews, Elder Millard’s companion, skulking in the corner, laughing at these revelations, but so far unscathed, so I decided to bring him into the dream. “Elder Millard, Elder Andrews is here.”
He made a disapproving noise in his throat. “He’s lazy,” he confided in a stage whisper, not wanting Andrews to overhear.
Yikes. I felt kind of bad that he was trashing his newbie, so I tried to remedy things. “No, he says he’s ready to get to work,” I ventured weakly.
“Que va!” he said in disbelief, clucking his tongue and wagging his finger back and forth. He didn’t seem to have anything more to add. Elder Andrews hung back, leaning against the doorway with his eyebrows raised and a smirk on his face.
Wondering what he thought of our zone leader (who was on a neighboring island) I queried, “Hey, Elder Millard, the zone leaders are on the phone. They want to know your numbers.”
“Tell them to blow it out their ass,” he replied testily. We were on the floor at this point, holding our sides with laughter, trying hard not to wake him. We kept having to leave the room to regain our composure.
Elder Cooper added, “They say President wants to know what’s going on with you and Hermana Liscom.”
He quickly threw me under the bus. “She’s nasty. I didn’t do anything! She tried to kiss me! I told her no!”
“But, Elder Millard, did you want to kiss her?” Elder Cooper asked, coyly.
A very long pause, and then a quiet, “Yes.”
The Legend of Hermana Plunge, Chapter 18
It was a rather raucous mission Christmas, probably not ideal from a missionary handbook perspective, but it certainly boosted our camaraderie and morale and made it much easier to go out into the streets in the coming weeks where we were insulted by children, had rocks and oranges hurled at us, had our sunglasses stolen by growling weirdos in a Cathedral, and were groped in a pickup game of basketball with some local tweens.
- If you served a mission, what was Christmas like away from home? Were you homesick? Did you celebrate with other missionaries? Was it fun and memorable or pathetic and Charlie Brown Christmas-y?
- Did you ever have a sleep-talking roommate or companion? Did they entertain you with their unfiltered unconscious comments?
- Do you think Christmas is harder for missionaries now that they are younger, and particularly during the pandemic? Do you know what the local missionaries in your area are doing to make the holiday noteworthy?
- Was your “mission Christmas” like mine or totally different?
Discuss.
[1] Not my favorite thing, TBH. It feels so canned and contrived. Can’t we just be normal people, get to know you, hear about your families and lives, and share fun stories?
[2] My companion and I lived in an apartment in a business building, and the apartment we lived in doubled as the chapel. Unfortunately, this meant the nearby elders had keys to our place, and routinely stopped by when we weren’t there to use the toilet and eat my Polander All Fruit jam.
Wheat & Tares 
Angela, I can’t say that my two Christmases in the Philippines were particularly memorable . Most folks were sleeping in after having attended Midnight Mass and the partying that often occurred after (I found out that many active members still attended Midnight Mass and probably the parties too). On my first Christmas, I recall performing some sort of service at the local health clinic, and I honestly don’t recall anything on the second Christmas other than surprising my companion with a knife belt (a leather belt with the buckle serving as a handle for a knife hidden in the leather – real practical gift, right?). I do recall attending a zone Christmas party maybe a week prior to Christmas where the zone leader played acoustic guitar for his companion who performed a cover of Weezer’s “Undone” with new lyrics about a missionary writing a letter to Santa (those two were talented dudes). We had a real straight-laced mission president who couldn’t have told you the difference between Weezer and Wham! but you would have thought those two were Paul and John the way he praised their performance. Good times.
My first Christmas on my mission I got bronchitis. The mission had an annual Christmas party with talent that neither I or my companion were interested in. She was Deaf and a lot of it included singing. So I decided we weren’t going. The AP found out and called to ask why. I told him that I had bronchitis all while coughing up my lungs. He had the audacity to ask if I was faking and implore me to go. I simply told him we weren’t going. Better to not subject people to a cough that sounds like I’ve been smoking for 40 years. Fun times. That was also the year I had a 104 fever but didn’t go to the hospital. The church takes poor care of it’s missionaries.
Back in the mid-60’s, missions to foreign-speaking areas were at least 2-1/2 years, with the extra half year as an opportunity to learn the language. I was called to Europe, and spent 3 Christmases in France or Belgium. The last was at the time of my release. Christmas was a difficult time to proselyte, so 5 of us had asked to be released a week early so we could travel to Spain. We needed the early release because the Viet Nam War was on and we needed to get back into college near the first of the year. Our MP approved the request. Transfers had gone out. At the last moment, our request was vetoed in SLC. We were transferred to the mission home to spend a week there working on a study guide of the OT (make work).
I took my time getting to the mission home. First, I stopped along the way to visit one of our converts. She was no longer active, and the visit was a bit awkward. Second, I played tourist in Ghent (outside my mission boundaries). Visiting the medieval city did wonders for my mental health. When I got to the mission home, the MP (a future GA) was justifiably pissed. I was called in for “counseling.”
He was mad about my unescorted day of wandering around. He said he should send me home early with a dishonorable release. In the middle of his lecture, a parent of one of the other missionaries sequestered in the mission home, called. He was mad. He wanted to know why son was sitting in the mission home and not on his way home. The MP didn’t have a good answer, and he knew we were just killing time. for a week. The MP dismissed me, telling me to sin no more. It’s a good thing he didn’t ask me what I did on my day of freedom. I spent my third Christmas in the mission home.
Rogerdhansen: Rough story about your MP. I just had to chime in that I finally went to Ghent early last year, and wow! What a great city! And the street waffles…amazing. That was a fantastic trip.
I actually had one of the more interesting and fun missionary Christmas Eve’s that I’ve ever heard of during my mission in Argentina in the mid-80s. I was in a mission in which the mission president authorized us (elders and sisters) to get together on Christmas Eve and Christmas. For some reason (I mean, who would miss this?) our gathering did not include the entire zone of missionaries, but we had probably 6-8 sisters and 20 or so elders.
So what did we do? We took over a local LDS meeting house for the evening of Christmas Eve and Christmas day. And yes, that includes an overnight activity with the sisters. The way I remember it, we played ping pong and soccer and board games and ate and drank to our hearts’ desire until early morning and then at one point the sisters locked themselves into the bishop’s office to sleep. There was not a hint of scandal or inappropriate behavior, just 30 or so missionaries (50% US 50% Argentine) trying to have a good time away from their families.
I’ve always been grateful for that experience and maybe it’s because I’m mindful that it was very improbable. I’m sure this was NOT what our mission president had in mind when he gave the green light to some informal missionary gatherings. Yet, as far as I knew, nobody engaged in any activity that would make him regret it. I guess I’m one of the few members who has actually spent the night in an LDS chapel like this (although I could be wrong)
I loved reading The Legend of Herman’s Plunge and recommend it to any one, but it was special to me because I also served in the Canary Islands, albeit several years later. It was fun to read about some of the same areas where I served, and sometimes I wondered if I knew some of the same people.
I was homesick for pretty much the whole mission. Not for my family’s home, becausei has already been living away from home happily for a year, but for the freedom to choose who I spend time with and what I do each day. I was not well suited for missionary life. In that respect, Christmas was better than most days. Both Christmas days of my mission were spent with the whole zone together, and the socialization with people other than my companion was good for me. The first Christmas I spent in Telde. I remember caroling with the zone and then spending Christmas Day at the house of one of the members who prepared a delicious meal.
The second Christmas I spent in Las Palmas. We had the whole zone at the piso of one of the senior missionary couples. They watched It’s a Wonderful Life, but I think I spent most of the time just socializing.
About a month after that second Christmas, two elders drowned. We spent time mourning at that same senior missionary piso with mostly the same people. The memories blend together, so while I’m sure that Christmas was a happy day, and I didn’t know the two elders very well, I can’t help but remember it with a bit of sadness.
Lol auto correct changed the book title on me. I swear I know the correct name of the book.
Served a mission in rural Guatemala. First Christmas I was with a native Spanish speaker by ourselves. It was pretty pathetic but I wasn’t particularly homesick. It was hot, dusty, and we had giant undercooked tamales and cow tongue as meals for the day. I did get to talk w my family for about an hour which was nice, since I hadn’t in 5 months.
2nd Christmas in Guatemala I was training and opening a new area at the same time. It was a Sunday and I was also branch President so we had church in the front room of our rented house with 5 investigators. Then we took a hour bus ride to a town with a telephone and spent the night and following pday with 2 other Elders.
We almost never got packages because the mail system was unreliable but my parents would sneak cash in their letter which were delivered by “pouch” mail. Somehow my parents got me a tie for my 2nd Christmas – I think they sent it with the a new missionary from my hometown who was arriving in my mission. I remember I spilled breakfast Christmas morning on my brand new tie. I was so a annoyed!
2nd Christmas was much more fun since we were with other missionaries. I called my family for like 15 minutes since I didn’t think there was much to talk about. We baked a very humble cake in the oven of the local chapel. 5 more months until I went home and it wasn’t a big deal.
A couple of things that I remember as different about Guatemalan Christmases was that they would have large nativity scenes taking up half a room. They’d throw everything in there. GI joes,
Dolls, random toy trucks, etc. They loved tamales which always seemed to be undercooked. Gross. They celebrated with fireworks all night long which was kind of cool but also kind of annoying when we wanted to sleep.
My mission president had the whole mission travel to Managua each Christmas. For Christmas Eve we had skits, musical numbers and a Christmas message from president and Hermana Townsend. We would sleep on the flood of the mission home, churches, or at other missionary apartments. Then the next morning we had like a mission wide zone conference, took a picture of the whole mission together, watched a non church movie together – I have such fond memories of Babe the pig, and then went back to our areas. It was one of the best times of my mission.