The image above is from the Church’s website. The image below is from a tumblr post:
What surprised me was the discussion in the Tumblr post that followed this image. Not one commenter mocked Mormonism. Instead, it was …. worse, somehow. Here’s the discussion.
Commenter 1:
Which is why it’s important not to be mean.
Their cult teaches them that the world is full of scary monster people who hate them for being so good and loved by god. If you swear at them and call them names or get in their face you’re just doing the cults work for it.
I’m not saying you have to listen to their presentation or try to debate them (and really getting into a debate without thoroughly understanding what they’re being taught will just make things worse)… I am just saying to be polite and say no thank you like if they were trying to hand you a flyer for something you don’t care about.
It’s easier for them to see the world outside their bubble as less scary if they see everyday people just going about their business and being as nice to them as you are to everyone else. This goes doubly for anyone who happens to dress modestly, not swear, and not drink or smoke because whatever you believe, they’ll see you as a “good” person who happens to strangely have no interest in their “message”, and that might be enough to get some curious about the possibility of themselves living in the real world.
It’s sometimes hard to be nice to people who seem to represent something you dislike. Just remember these “elders” are sheltered young men, some of which are getting their first real contact with people of other/no faiths.
They are not your enemy. They are victims.
Commenter 2:
They aren’t being sent out to actually convert people, they are being sent out hoping that they will be harassed and treated poorly so they view those outside the cult as dangerous and evil and stick to the safety of the familiar group.
You being mean to some teenager isn’t sticking it to anyone, you’re doing exactly what their church elders want to happen.
Commenter 3:
If you’re kind to enough of them, they put you on a block list.
They were such sweet kids, they’d turn up at my door with the thatch of raspberries out front and try to share their word with me, and I’m me, so, I fed them.
Then it was one of the wee ‘elder’s’ birthday, so I made him a cake, and all the little lads came, and they asked about my books and board games and CCGs, I was just a nice frumpy middle aged Jewish lady, I was no threat, so I fed them and made them cakes and took them to the local gaming store and listened when they talked.
One loved yu-gi-oh cards, and it turns out, one of the other wee lads, we’ll he loved him back, so I got them in touch with some resources so they had support and a different way to pay for college, they’re still together 15 years later, they have dogs, they send me ecards on their birthday. No-one figured out I’d.helped them, I was just the nice lady who made them tea and listened when people were slamming doors.
The next one really wanted to be an artist, so I left out art books and resources, my eldest shared their coptic markers, they draw comic books now, no idea why his folks were insisting he needed to be a dentist, but, he’s not a Mormon anymore, (not a Jew either before anyone makes any counter conversion claims).
The first 2 lads were the only dramatic ones, the rest went back into the network but, like Hugh of Borg, they spread the word, sometimes I’d get Mormons from other cities come and make the journey to break bread at my Sabbath table and be seen.
I still think very fondly of that time.
Many of those boys still email me now and then.
Most of them aren’t Mormons anymore.
Someone higher up spotted the pattern and suddenly no more Mormons at my door.
I was blacklisted, for kindness.
So there you go, if you don’t want Mormons at your door, just love those kids for a couple of years, feed them, help them, and eventually, no more will be allowed to visit.
When I was in the MTC, I heard some weepy testimonies about how great will be our joy if we bring even one soul to Christ (dramatic pause) even if that one soul is your own! Sure, missions were partly about converting the missionary; it’s just that I thought we were doing that by studying the doctrine and testifying. From the outside looking in, though, the conversion experience is being persecuted and finding out the Church is the only safe place in the world.
What do you think?
Does facing persecution while knocking on doors make a missionary more devoted to the Church?
When someone treated you badly on the mission, did you draw closer to Church for safety?
How did it affect you when someone yelled at you and slammed the door?
How did it affect you when someone was kind to you, and yet didn’t want to join the Church?
Wheat & Tares 
My step-grandmother was a woman who was raised LDS. She was in an abusive temple marriage and served religiously – was in RS presidencies even. She left and made a life with a good man, an interesting career, and thoughtfully supported her handicapped child to the point where that child could have their own life. She made time and attention available to take me clothes shopping for mission-suitable clothes from a department store. At the time, I understood that she was putting herself outside her comfort zone to support me in my quest to serve a mission with the proper gear. It is only as my narrative regarding the church and it’s value to me in my life has changed so much that I begin to understand what that kindness really cost her.
I loved my mission. I think it’s often a great way for young people to get out of their community and learn about others. I think this article is a touch too cynical for me.
You’re right. The Tumblr commenters didn’t mock Mormonism: they pitied and ever so slightly vilified it instead. Mocking would have been better; ironically, we only mock things we’re inclined to take seriously.
Our missionaries look ridiculous to outsiders. The look that may have appealed to the nostalgically-minded through, say, the early 90s (if I’m being generous) is just bizarre now. And the door-knocking model—well, many pixels on the Bloggernacle have already been spilled.
And while I’m sure there are folks sitting in Salt Lake who do take the cynical view that being pitied for being weirdos will drive the missionaries closer to the mothership, the approach is unsustainable.
I had a really good mission experience, partly because I went to an area of the world where Americans were exotic. People didn’t slam doors in my face or shout at me. For the most part, they were intrigued by an American speaking their language and happy to talk about religion, regardless of how it turned out. A few times, someone griped about how we were turning people away from their heritage and culture, but that was it.
lws329 – the tumblr opinions were too cynical for me too, at least based on personal experience. I drew closer to the Church during my mission because of all the teaching and testifying I was doing, and also because the members were such a close and wonderful community. I didn’t experience persecution. However, that was 25 years ago in a foreign country that liked Americans. I imagine the experience is very different for an American missionary called to an American city in 2024.
Margie’s right, the pity extended to missionaries is worse than mocking beliefs. Seeing missionaries as victims is a huge condemnation of Church. To the extent outsiders view missionaries this way, missionary work is damaging the Church for reasons that go far beyond disagreeing with our doctrine.
Amy – my grandfather supported my mother’s mission, despite disagreeing with all of it. It really was a sacrifice. Thanks for sharing your story.
I spent 2 years in Brazil from 2001 to 2003. As the field was relatively white down there, missionaries got far more positive reinforcement from baptisms than any sort of persecution hardening from rejection. We also knew that knocking doors was the worst, so we did it as little as possible.
I don’t remember people treating us badly as missionaries. They might not answer the door, or give us an excuse that they were busy, but that’s far from persecution. Inasmuch as a mission drew missionaries tighter into the church, I think it was from the experience with the other missionaries. We were missionaries every moment of every day, and that connected us to each other and the church. We could have been building houses for the homeless, or serving soup, or working on a dance routine, or making the world’s largest domino display. We were a group, we lived together, we had a common purpose, we were distinct from the people around us, and that is what made us draw inward towards the group that we represented.
Many people were kind to us and didn’t want to join the church. Often the kindest people were inactive members that didn’t have much interest in going back but still clearly loved the missionaries. I don’t remember that bothering me much, because it was a regular occurrence. The more confusing part were the people who seemed to legitimately investigate the church, but apparently got the “wrong” answer to their prayers. It was pretty rare that we’d find someone who took us seriously. People who actually “investigated” the church, rather than just sat through a presentation. I knew one guy who read the entire BoM before his baptism, because he wasn’t going to join a church until he’d actually read the book the say is so important. I knew another guy who specifically came to church the day of the World Cup final (that Brazil was playing in) because he wanted to see if the people at church would actually put church ahead of soccer. (We had about 60% of the normal attendance.) There were a few others that I heard offer sincere prayers about the things we were saying. These were the exceptions over the course of 2 years. Some of those people were baptized. Some weren’t. And I’m glad that in their cases, it wasn’t because they didn’t think about it, and grapple with big decisions that could have significant impact on their lives. I saw people that felt something and changed their lives. And I saw people that came to conclusion that we were not what they were looking for. Those experiences were probably the first nuance to the church that I learned. Either the timing wasn’t right for those people, or the church wasn’t right for all people, or something. But Moroni 10:3-5 wasn’t some magic formula that would work every time just because someone “did it right”.
@Janey “To the extent outsiders view missionaries this way, missionary work is damaging the Church for reasons that go far beyond disagreeing with our doctrine.”
So well put. I don’t think it’s particularly troubling that outsiders view the BoM as written “by a 19th century con-man.” Fair. But the missionary program in its current iteration (ie virtually unchanged for 60+ years) while perhaps not -actually- victimizing the majority of missionaries has tipped from big net positive to mixed bag to net negative for the Church. Which is so sad—it didn’t have to be that way. The fixes aren’t hard.
I grew up in a pretty liberal home, both religiously and politically. Dad would talk to anyone. When the Jehovah Witnesses came he listened and had them to dinner. He was doing interfaith dialogue before it was a thing and one of those pastors even spoke at his funeral. So I never really saw baptisms and “winning souls” as a primary focus. It saddens me greatly when I hear of those who had missions that were pressure and numbers dirven. Mine was not in any way. I served in NYC Spanish speaking. The Latino’s were almost always kind. Most of them wanted to know why a couple of gringos were speaking spanish in the US. On those occasions working in areas that were english speaking, it was a whole different story. And, I hated it. I preferred the ghetto.
Sure, I’d get down at times from the rejection. I learned from my trainer that you had to laugh a lot. He’d turn ugly rejection into a joke and we’d keep going. Once I guy challenged my trainer to a fight. He handed me his bag and said, “Come on man, let’s do it.” Punk backed down.
I never felt persecuted by rejection. It was just part of the deal. Did get roughed up by a gang once but that’s a different story. I only had one transfer and was in one spanish branch for 15 months. Those members were like family and I am still in contact with many of them. They were like parents in a way and we could drop in any time and would feel buoyed up. Not because we dumped our bad experiences but more because they were like our parents and interested in us.
I guess I am saying my experience was a bit unorthodox with and MP that was as kind, loving, Christlike than anyone I’ve ever known. So it was a good experience. BTW, MP was a AF general, so I expected Patton and got Merton.
I didn’t serve a mission, so I can’t really comment on that part of things. I agree that the Tumblr post is a bit cynical, but it is an accurate reflection of how people see us, so it’s at least instructive. I also think the comments do have a point or two, especially about the naivete and unpreparedness of missionaries. And it’s also true that there are many members who indeed take both cruel insults and legitimate criticism of the church as signs that the church is, indeed the ONE TRUE CHURCH. I don’t want to open that can of worms about whether the church is a cult; we’ve done that here before, but I will say that that is one sign of at least cult-like behavior or brainwashing; treating facts that refute one’s beliefs as, bizarrely, further proof of said beliefs. THAT’s a tendency I’ve seen a lot of over the years. And surely there is something to the numbers of returned missionaries who later leave the church; perhaps the mission experience is not as seminal and testimony-strengthening as our leadership tells us it is. I’m happy to hear about those who really enjoyed and benefited from the mission experience. And I’m equally saddened to hear about those who did not find serving a mission a fulfilling experience. I think it really would benefit our young people if we just took our foot off the gas a bit when it comes to the whole necessity of serving a mission (especially, obviously, for the young men). Less pressure might mean fewer missionaries, but it might also mean more healthy young people.
My husband will hate this if he sees it, so, I am using a name he won’t recognize, but I am a regular poster here. My husband went to Europe, a very Catholic country where changing churches away from the state religion increased your taxes. Baptisms were practically unheard of, and there was real persecution, as in being spit on, cursed, doors slammed, hookers opening the door naked and laughing, beer thrown in their faces. And yes, the persecution forced the missionaries to bond tighter to each other and the church. It did tighten his testimony, because he sees it as the persecution complex teaches us to see it, as the evil hating the righteous because we have the one true church. He talks about the way the people treated the missionaries with a kind of pride, as if it proved something besides that they had been taught to hate Mormons as evil people who will tempt their loved ones away from the Catholic Church. When I challenge the persecution complex thinking, he knows they had just been taught to hate Mormons, but then reverts right back to how the hatred proves the church is true.
So, although the comments were pretty cynical, they spoke truth as far as some missions went back in the late 60s. My husband is living proof that those comments pitying the poor victims of a cult have some real truth
My mission built character in the sense that I really, really hated it. I read over and over the promise in my patriarchal blessing that my mission would be a “glorious experience if I were to but make it so” and boy did I try to make it so but did not succeed. 20+ years later and I still have occasional nightmares of being back in the MTC about to leave for 2 more years and can’t for the life of me figure out why I would have agreed to do it again. After I got home, I did a road trip with a friend of mine back through our (state-side) missions. His had been adjacent to mine. I stopped to chat with my old companion in our last apartment and on stepping in had my first and only panic attack. The room started spinning, and I couldn’t really get my bearings or catch my breath until we left.
I don’t recall much of any rudeness or animosity. Mostly just polite refusals. The only baptisms we had were people who were already connected to the church through romantic or family relationships, and probably would have been baptized with or without us. I did learn the admittedly valuable skill of being able to talk to people who really don’t want to talk to me, which has been useful at work and less often in personal relationships. I wish that I had learned the more valuable (and more difficult, for me) skill of talking to people who DO want to talk to me, but I suppose I can hardly blame the mission for that. Since then, and especially now that I have a son approaching mission age, I’ve wondered if there’s not some other way to gain those skills. Maybe I would have learned just as much if I had spent that time at a community college instead. I certainly would have enjoyed in more.
I think a point the post alludes to but doesn’t quite state outright is that a lot of the “good” parts of a mission, for those that enjoy them, can come at the expense of the local population that is supposed to be being served. If missionaries spent their time actually serving instead of training to work in summer sales perhaps the experience would be improved for everyone.
The Church more or less admits that the purpose of full-time missionaries is to covert and strengthen the missionaries themselves. They see the numbers. They realize that the number of conversions per missionary has been falling for a long time. And yet the program survives remarkably similar to what I experienced in the 80s. The COJCOLDS is a big business and the leaders know that the missionary department is very unsuccessful if it is measured by the number of new converts each year. They aren’t dumb at 50 E North Temple. They know exactly what they are doing: establishing a base of future LDS leaders and tithing payers. (also: shout out to BYU because the purpose is the same there too).
Freudian slip when I used the word “covert” instead of “convert” above
Another early 2000s Brazil missionary here. I had a blast. Warm weather, palm trees, good food, ocean views. And converting to a different religion, at least at that time, was very common in Brazil due to an evangelical boom so we had crazy success (this is not a flex, I promise).
I baptized 119 investigators and that was considered middle of the road for my mission. There was a “200 club” mostly populated by zone leaders and APs with big personalities and bro energy. “I like these hot shots that think of themselves as big baptizers,” my mission president once told my companion, “because they baptize.”
But, oh boy, our “teaching style” was highly manipulative, our lessons were full of misinformation, our commitment pattern was ethically dubious, and our investigators were most often children. The people in that region of Brazil were largely quite agreeable. They’d rather say yes to something and then hide from you when it was time to follow through than say no to your face. Which is good, because we were terrible at taking no for an answer.
Easiest way to get rid of the missionaries? Agree to everything, let them baptize you, and watch them instantly disappear from your life.
We were instructed not to waste time Bible bashing in favor of pursuing “the elect” (the agreeable) but we spent plenty of time Bible bashing anyway because we were so drunk on the feeling of being right.
I was a pretty sweet, non judgmental theater kid in HS with plenty of non-member friends. I returned from
the mission an entitled hard-ass and quickly alienated all my old non-member friends with pushy letters making it clear that getting baptized in our church was the only right way to live life. I then proceeded to have a lonely, miserable time at college where dating did not go smoothly like the mission did.
So yeah, the mission was a great time. And I learned to take care of myself, navigate big cities, speak with confidence, see poverty in a way I hadn’t before, etc. But in the end, and with some hindsight, I think my mission radicalized me for a pretty toxic version of Mormonism—the patriarchy-celebrating, Honor Code rat, bear your testimony on dates kind of pitiful BYU bro version of Mormonism. And it socially isolated me in the long run. It took me a good while to snap out of it.
I can really relate to the nightmare of having to go back on a mission. I had a few different versions of the nightmare. One was the dream that I was about to be released and the mission president told me I had to serve one more year due to low baptism production. Another dream was that I was at home and married and I was called on another mission, leaving my wife behind. I think I had at least 5 different dreams, all on the same topic of serving more time, putting my life on hold.
I learned lots on my mission for which I am truly thankful but I would never do it again. I’m just thankful I had daughters so I didn’t have to worry about them being pressured to serve.
I was in Brazil 1999-2001. In spite of being an extremely dangerous city, the locals were extremely superstitious about harming missionaries. BTW, this was only where I was in Maceio, in other Brazilian cities it was a completely different dynamic. Consequently, I was never harmed. The worst that happened was some thugs stole an iron from our apartment on Christmas day.
I did remember feel extremely annoyed when the friendly folks didn’t join the church. Sometimes I would tell them off. And thus ended the friendship.
I definitely felt the psychological effect of clinging to the church over getting in a strong disagreement or having the door slammed in my face. But mostly it just led to exhaustion with missionary work. I was glad to be done with my mission. I never had any desire, nor do I have any desire now, to do it again. It felt like a cult experience for a good portion of it. I remember the biggest thing that I learned was how to deal with difficult situations through humor. My best companionships had lots of inside jokes. But aside from that, I think a lot of my mission was a waste of time. It took me years to deprogram and unlearn nonsense I had “learned” after I got back.
Imagine my surprise when today the missionaries offered to help me with housework or yard work, without even knowing me!
I guess they think I’m inactive, but it’s quite lovely to be offered help and I think I will take them up on their offer because this to me is the only true meaning of any religion and particularly a lovely way of witnessing of Christ. I think were the missionaries known for their service the church would have a far greater legitimacy in our communities and would be far less likely to be rubbished as a cult. I guess the choice is theirs.
I don’t think that the church leaders have ever had the conversation of, “Mwuahaha, we’ll send them out, and people will be mean to them, and then they will view those outside the cult as dangerous and evil and stick to the safety of the familiar group. That’s a good plan, that’s the reason why will continue the missionary program.”
It may be a contributing factor to returned missionaries remaining active, but I just don’t think that church leaders have consciously thought or had any secret meetings where they’ve said, “Yeah, we’ll send em out to get harassed, then the’ll stick with our group.”
My mission experience did not lead to the conclusion of “those outside the church are dangerous and evil”. My experience was that I left the mission thinking, “Wow, there are a lot of really great people who aren’t members of the church. I wonder why God doesn’t tell them to join the church?” That thought led me to the conclusion of “I don’t think God wants everyone to be Mormon. I think God’s kingdom is much bigger than the LDS church.”
@Josh h “The Church more or less admits that the purpose of full-time missionaries is to covert and strengthen the missionaries themselves.”
Yes. I think one point of this post is that missionaries are learning more than the church anticipates. From personal experience it seems many of those coming home early do so not from illness or unworthiness but because they are disillusioned. One son of a bishop came home fully anti and ended his obligatory testimony at the homecoming with a “thank you.”
When missionaries come to my house I always offer them food and drive them to their next appointment. But during their spiritual thought I answer their questions honestly although non confrontationally. Sometimes my answers shock them like when I challenged the divinity of Jesus or claimed that the church still practices polygamy. They don’t visit much any more, maybe I’m not as kind as I think I am.
Also… I think a similar analysis could be done for the temple. As in how many 18 year olds (also on Tik Tok) receive their endowment and say WTF??
aportic1’s last paragraph is what I experienced as well, and perhaps was the beginning of the end. If God didn’t need everyone to be Mormon, maybe he didn’t need me to be Mormon, if it was making me so unhappy.
I have to admit when I see missionaries now I also feel sad for them. Most people just do not care about what they have to offer. Also the rules drive me batty. We aren’t allowed to feed them because those doors won’t knock themselves. Adult leaders really don’t always treat them well.
@aporetic1 perhaps I’m overly cynical, but I do imagine that, even if church leaders haven’t said exactly those words, they’ve said things that have roughly the same meaning, like: “Adversity experienced on a mission brings faith”, “Bearing one’s testimony, even/especially to [often antagonistic] non-believers, will only strengthen it”, “Missionaries who die/are severely injured while on their missions will be rewarded in the afterlife”
Kirkstall, where in Brazil did you go? I was in Maceio, Alagoas. It was the poorest region in the Brazil, and even poor by standards of the northeast. I remember in my mission there was actually emphasis against baptizing kids (unless they were really committed and had parental permission). Baptisms were relatively low compared to other missions in Brazil, as well. Missionaries weren’t allowed to go in some of the favelas as they were extremely dangerous, poor, and there were extremely few people there who had any leadership qualities (most people were probably functionally illiterate there as well), which is what the mission president told us to try to find. I baptized some 24 investigators, I remember. I thought it was very few compared to other stories that I had heard. Then after I returned I met people who had served missions in the Netherlands and Scandinavia and there they counted the number of houses they were let into, and didn’t really even expect to baptize anyone. They counted street contacts as well. In Brazil, street contacts were absolutely pointless, especially because so many people would let you in. I remember at some point, I ditched the door spiel they told us to say and found that “podemos entrar” was the most effective strategy to get in a house.
Brad D, I was in João Pessoa. I’m glad your mission discouraged proselytizing to kids. Even with the inflated baptism stats, I think I can count on one hand the investigators I taught who stayed in the church long term.
I served a mission in French-speaking Quebec. However, I was in English areas for 1/2 of the time. The ability to learn and master French was a huge reason why I loved my mission. I think I would have been sorely disappointed if I would have been called to a state-side mission. I met so many great people and have so many precious memories. But there were many dark, depressing, isolating, and monotonous times on my mission that I believe, looking back in retrospect, were not healthy.
My best friend growing up left his mission early in Brazil. We were in the MTC at the same time. He attempted to cut his wrists in the first few weeks on his mission. We discussed the incident briefly when we were back home. He said he felt utterly hopeless and trapped. He had never exhibited any behavior like that before his mission. My older cousin served a mission in Baltimore and he had a psychotic break which ultimately led him to go home. He was diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia and would never be the same. Ultimately he would die homeless by suicide on the streets of Salt Lake in the Rio Grande area.
When I had returned from my mission I was attending BYU and I was listening Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning. I remember having a very difficult time readjusting to normal life. I found it puzzling and troubling at how I felt like I could relate in some small way to psychological experiences the author was describing. Obviously nothing that we experienced as missionaries in the safe country of Canada was anything remotely close to a concentration camp. And yet, in my visits up to HMHI (it was called UNI at the time) I learned that there was an entire subset of missionaries all over the world who had extreme manifestations of mental health breakdowns while serving a mission.
It has been over 23 years since I have been home. I no longer get the nightmares of still being on a mission. But my mom who served a mission in Hong Kong describes getting these nightmares too. I find it interesting that this is a common occurrence and I think it says something about the mental challenges that are either self-imposed or imposed by mission leadership or church culture. Thankfully missionaries can talk to their families more than 2 times per year. That was absolutely cruel in my opinion.
The absolute best parts of my mission were the service. We called out bingo at assisted living facilities, delivered Meals on Wheels with Catholic Charities, I volunteered at the Montreal Institute for the Blind, taught English class to Canadian immigrants, etc. The ability to meet so many diverse cultures in Canada and experience a clean, safe, large urban city and learn how to navitage the Metro (subway) converted me to an urbanist for life. I also gained the ability to speak to complete strangers and let frequent rejection roll off of me. This would help me in my dating life post-mission as I felt much more confident asking girls who were far outside of my league. That said, I do relate to Kristall’s comments about becoming a toxic RM BYU bro would describe me to a degree. But more than anything, I think serving a mission just made me really weird. I had an enormously difficult time reverting to the semblance of normal post-mission life. Just watching TV or a movie or even having downtime made me feel hyper guilty.
Experiencing what I experienced myself and also observing the mission-related tragedies of family and friends, there is no way I would let my son serve a mission. I will probably encourage him to take a gap year, join the AmeriCorp, or study abroad for a semester. I think just traveling and staying in hostels might be a good thing too. I remember feeling so jealous of a couple of Albertans college students in our branch in Quebec City who were doing a semester in Laval University. I just envied the fact that they were getting to sharpen their language skills without the drudgery of tracting for days, weeks, and months on end.
In summary, I think there are lots of different ways to get many of the benefits of a mission without the harms that don’t involve actually serving a mission.
What I’d really like to see for a mission is some sort of apprentice/trades mission where young men and women go out and build houses for Habitat for Humanity or something like that. They would learn an in-demand vocational trade (or at least start to learn one) while using their time to help the less fortunate. It would be a pure service mission. Housing that is created should be affordable/free for the poor and disabled. Shorten the time of a mission to 4-6 months and give the youth the ability to do non-mission related activities on weekends and nights: sports/exercise, food, hikes, games in the park, visiting cultural sites, mingling and socializing with other missionaries, etc.
Jacob L,
While you make many important points in your post I would like you to understand that schizophrenia isn’t caused by outside events. Typically, it runs in families (genetic causes) and emerges in early adulthood. While the setting of a mission may make this transition more difficult, schizophrenia emerges in early adulthood when young people are in any circumstance.
I’ve had the “back on my mission” nightmares too. One was just in the past year, several years after I quit church entirely.
I had a great experience on my mission, and also a disastrous time. It was both extremes. Some of the best experiences of my life happened on my mission. My mission is when my mental health started to (identifiably) shatter. I felt the presence of God guiding me; I felt the ‘pure intelligence’ of real revelations. I was sure the devil was trying to derail my efforts. I can’t read my mission journal because the incessant guilt and self-lecturing are too painful to look back on. The photos are amazing – I loved people so much. My mission was intense. For both good and bad, it was intense.
Adjusting back to real life was difficult. I felt so guilty about watching TV or just chilling. I tried to keep up the scripture study practice. I looked for missionary opportunities. I still wore my mission clothes (awful). I watched a bad movie (Jurassic Park); I knew it was bad because it gave me nightmares and that was like God telling me not to go back to worldly media. I look back on my mission and my post-mission adjustment and I want to cry and go back and hug myself and apologize for not noticing all the indicators that something really big was wrong.
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Those tumblr comments though. I want to ask a current missionary about them. An elder who was born in 2005, who was 11 years old when MAGA swept the USA and maybe his parents got caught up in it and believe these are the last days and that shaped all his teen years. He was homeschooled so as not to learn disgusting secular principles. He was 15 when covid shut down the world and most of his interactions from age 15-18 were online. He’s from Utah and was called to Alabama and the Bible Belt persecution is really hard on him. Is he experiencing what those tumblr comments suggest? Are those comments more valid for missionaries today?
Lws329,
So I am a registered nurse and I’ve worked in behavioral medicine. I am well aware of the etiology of various forms of mental illness and have treated many patients in various settings. You are correct that there is a strong genetic component. However, the exact cause of the disease is unknown and there are strong environmental factors as well. Extreme stress like what is experienced by many missionaries, while not causing schizophrenia, can act as a trigger that allows it to manifest itself in someone who is genetically predisposed. I do believe that the church guidance has changed towards dissuading prospective missionaries who have diagnosed mental health issues from a proselyting mission and towards a service mission. I think my larger point was that a mission represents a real mental (and in some cases physical) health risk for some segment of the population.
Jacob, My understanding is the church “allows” service missions in certain circumstances. In other words the priesthood authority determines the type of mission a missionary should serve, rather than the missionary. Baby steps.
My mission was controlling, manipulative, and even coercive. I felt like I was a salesman with questionable motives and ethics. The goal was not to help the person; it was to get them baptized at all costs. I left the Church one week after I got home and have no regrets about leaving.
Know through חכמה how the Torah itself proves that JeZeus & Muhammad, as false prophets?
Moshe commanded, that later in the future, prophets like himself would come and command mussar. The Torah commands משנה תורה, common law. All the NaCH prophets teach משנה תורה mussar. The false prophets JeZeus & Muhammad do not teach משנה תורה\common law mussar. Just that simple, not complicated at all.
Jewish worship of avoda zarah defined through assimilation and intermarriage with Goyim, who never accepted the revelation of the Torah at Sinai – the Prime First Cause which defines the k’vanna of the Torah curse known as the Amalek antisemitism. Which plagues Jews in all generations.
Xtian & Muslim revisionist history/’Evil Eye’- I believe theology – sucks. Today, as it has for 2000+ years. God is not a Man, anymore than JeZeus or Muhammad T’NaCH prophets. Justice does not depend upon what persons personally believes, concerning speculation attempts to define the Gods. The gospel metaphor of “Father” just as false as prayer directed to God in Heaven. Tefillah a matter of the heart; just that simple. Throw your new-testament or koran revisionist history upon the dung heaps of false history.
Xtian religious revisionist history as meritorious, as tits on a boar hog. The Genocide slander of Israel made by post-Apartheid South Africa, compares to the Xtian ‘Blood Libels, and follow-up Pogroms’, committed every Easter – throughout the Middle Ages of European criminal barbarism.
The absolute and complete ignorance of Goyim living in faraway distant countries, coupled with their arrogant presumed superiority of Israeli politics – a bad joke. Why? Their disgraceful sophomoric biblical translations unto foreign languages, falsely assumes that translations possess the power to define key terms, from one language to the next.
Alas, covenant does not define brit. The koran abomination never once refers to the “Brit Faith”. Their bible & koran idols, fail to discern the difference between translating words from language to language. To comprehending the prophetic mussar rebukes. The defining “k’vanna” which all tohor time-oriented commandment most fundamentally require. Known as “fear of Heaven”. The interpretation of the k’vanna of this fundamental term: protecting like the apple of your eye your good name reputation. Post Shoah: Fear of Heaven applies neither to Xtian Europe or Arab and Muslim repeated attempts to complete the Nazi Shoah.
The Book of בראשית commands tohor time oriented commandments. This opening Book of the Torah contains few Torah commandments, unlike as expressed in the other 4 Books of the Torah. Time oriented commandments center on some time of national crisis. Jewish laws of kashrut require removal the Gid Hanasheh/sciatic nerve\ based upon the crisis of Yaacov meeting Esau when travelled with an Army at his back with the purpose – to totally destroy Yaacov. Hence the mitzva to remove the gid hanasheh, it remembers this National crisis, on par with the Akadah of Yitzak. Neither new testament nor koran teach the Av mitzva of all Torah commandments – the dedication of tohor time-oriented commandments during times of National distress. Why? Because neither Xtianity or Islam have any potion with the nation of Israel.
Scratch a Goy and expose a Satan barbarian that possesses their Souls; never in their entire lives has a single Goy ever contemplated the concept of Torah time-oriented commandments. Amazing! Because all other Torah commandments qualify as toldoth/off-spring\ of these Most Holy of Holies Av/primary Torah commandments.
How could Goyim theology so horribly fail? How could the best alien Goyim minds, in Ages past to present fall?! In their inability to grasp the essential primacy of tohor time-oriented commandments which define not only the Book of בראשית but the Siddur as well?
Answer: Flawed from the first word of the Torah; their translations of “tefillah to prayer”, totally fails to grasp that בראשית holds within its 6 letters: ברית אש, ראש בית, ב’ ראשית. These forever “outsiders” deny the existence of the פרדס Oral Torah revelation at Horev! They share no destiny with the Jewish people: the chosen Cohen First-Born nation.
Post WWII Shoah European guilt, expressed through the rebuke made against false prophets to their eternal condemnation as CURSED: “By their fruits you shall know them.” Rather ironic that a false prophet accurately depicts both these worthless religions of avoda zarah.
Their Evil Eye/I believe theology speculations of the Gods, abhors the Primacy – the pursuit of justice between Man & Man, as the definition of Torah faith. Their replacement theology: “I am saved”, belief in false Universal God(s), an utter total abomination; like unto the Oct 7th Abomination War.
Muhammad falsely presumed that JeZeus qualifies, comparable to his bloated Ego-self, as a T’NaCH prophet. His pie in the sky koran avoda-zarah did not know how the T’NaCH defines the word “Prophet”.
The avoda-zarah name: Allah, it profanes the 1st Sinai commandment. Therefore (A concealed sworn Torah oath implied by this legal common law language of Torah.), Allah just another “Sin of the Golden Calf”, abomination of avoda zarah – the k’vanna of the 2nd Sinai Commandment.
I keep Saturday as the true Sabbath, but I still go to church on Sunday. Am I breaking the 4th commandment?
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Susan Krakowsky: M.A. in Near Eastern Languages, Ph.D. in Mass Communication
You cannot break the 4th commandment. The Israelite commandments do not apply to you. They apply only to Israelites – to Jews. So you can stop worrying.
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Moshe Kerr · Exactly Susan. The Shabbat commandment requires the wisdom which can make the הבדלה distinction between forbidden מלאכה from forbidden עבודה – both translated by the broad brush Xtian biblical translators as “work”. No making הבדלה no keeping shabbat. Just that simple.
And that’s not even touching the kabbalah of shabbat observances. The Mishkan mitzva, built around “build me a Mishkan and the Divine Spirit Presence Name will dwell שוכן, commonly translated as “dwell” within you.
Contrast the nt forgery where the disciples asked their god to teach them how to pray. And that god declared: “Our Father who art in heaven etc.” Torah based tefillah – a matter of the dedication of the heart. Non bnai brit Goyim (Non-Jews never accepted the revelation of the Torah at Sinai. The Xtian bible translations and Muslim koran, both violate the first and second Sinai commandments.), pray to some god which dwells in the Heavens.
This fundamental distinction, (in Aramaic: מאי נפקא מינא) links the two similar verbs roots שכן and שבת together. Something like and similar to מלאכה and עבודה both translate as work. The mystic kabbala term “Shekinah” stands upon the Hebrew root שכן from which likewise derives the word משכן, commonly translated as Tabernacle! The Hebrew language builds itself upon verb 3-letter verb roots.
Sophomoric biblical translations fail to grasp that translations do not define the k’vanna (poorly translated as “intent”) of abstract terms. For example: ברית commonly mistranslated as “covenant”. A more accurate translation “alliance”. Why? What makes “alliance” a more accurate description of the Hebrew word “ברית”?
A very complex question. The first word of the Torah בראשית, contains within its 6 letters the רמז of ברית אש. Mesechta Sanhedrin of the Oral Torah codification known as the Talmud asks: What caused the floods in the days of Noach? Answer, given by the Talmud: swearing false oaths. This answer delves into the Av/toldot relationship between sefer בראשית/ראש בית Av tohor time-oriented Commandments relationship with the next 3 Books of the Written Torah שמות, ויקרא, ובמדבר – toldot/off spring commandments.
A very complex question, which both mesechta Shabbat and Baba Kama ask. There specific question: Do the toldot follow after the Avot. The Book of בראשית commands tohor time-oriented commandments through the specific commandments of 1) fruitful and multiply 2) circumcision 3) removing the sciatic nerve. The last remembers the threat of total extinction faced by Yaacov when he met his brother Esau who came, (according to Targum Uziel [the top student of Hillel the Elder], with an Army led by 400 Officers!). The mitzva of removing the sciatic nerve recalls this trauma which compares to the time oriented commandment known as Akadat Yitzak.
The latter toldot commandment of dedicating korbanot by means of swearing an oath while standing before an altar, learns from the Av time-oriented commandment known as Akadat Yitzak. In its turn, the Torah commandment of Moshiach, learns from Moshe “anointing” the House of Aaron – as Cohonim, and remembered through the many toldot-commandments of korbanot.
The mitzva from the Torah known as tefillah, specifically expressed through the mitzva known as kre’a shma, the Talmud teaches that tefillah stands in the מקום (a סוד to the שם השם) of korbanot. The brit cut between the pieces Avram swore an oath “alliance” with the Name that this Name would live/dwell within the hearts of all his future born (עולם הבא) children. Hence tefillah as a toldot mitzva of the time oriented commandment “cut” between the Name and Avram at the brit between the pieces.
The translation perversion of covenant a gross perversion as the equally false translation of tefillah as prayer. As tefillah different from Tehillem/Psalms “prayers”, in that the former requires שם ומלכות, so too swearing a oath brit requires שם ומלכות. Translations of both words qualify as the Sin of the Golden Calf.
The Divine Presence Holy Spirit Name not a word which the lips of man can easily pronounce. מלכות, refers to the dedication (think korbanot) of defined tohor middot holy to the Spirit Divine Presence Name within the bnai brit hearts. Hence the repetition of this Holy Name: ‘ה’ ה’ אל רחום וחנון וכו. The Torah commands: do not say the Name in vain. What does the repetition of the Name teach? Answer: just as the רוח הקודש שם השם Spirit and NOT word, so too בצלם אלהים/in the image of God\ the attributes of mercy that follow. The relationship between the Name and its middot/attributes of mercy there-after, revealed to Moshe 40 days after the Sin of the Golden Calf, teach the כלל Av/toldot relationship between בראשית time oriented commandments to שמות ויקרא ובמדבר toldot positive and negative commandments.
The last Book of the Written Torah, known as משנה תורה\דברים teaches Common Law as the דרך/way to study the Written Torah Av/toldot relationship of Torah commandments. The Gaonic scholar known by the acronym of בהג author of הלכות גדולות (a codification of Talmudic common law) introduced the novel concept that argues that if the תרי’’ג mitzvot exist as toldot commandments subsumed by Avot time-oriented commandments, then the halachot of the Sha’s Bavli, likewise can qualify as commandments from the Torah, if and only if these toldot commandments “transmute” themselves into tohor time-oriented commandments!
This idea to transmute: likewise expressed in Catholic dogmatism touch the blood and body of their mystical messiah god. The xtian “Blood Libel” plague resulted in pogroms almost every Easter, annually for hundreds of years.