What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or so Kelly Clarkson would have you believe. But what if it does kill you, or at least puts you in grave danger? Before we discuss the dangers posed to missionaries, watch this utterly chilling movie trailer featuring Hugh Grant as a potential investigator:
In case you were wondering the two actors playing the sister missionaries both have ties to the church, making their performance even more believable. Hugh Grant is creepy AF as a “nice older man” who is “spiritually curious” as the sister missionary flatteringly describes him, hoping to win a convert before she realizes that he’s been deceiving them this whole time.
If someone wants to harm the missionaries, companion or not, they will have plenty of opportunity. Especially in our modern social media era, people are not vigilant about their neighbors in ways they used to be. But even before social media (I served from 1989-1990), there were always people on the fringes of society, and while you do sometimes teach people who are more mainstream, the weirdos are almost always willing to talk to you. And given the focus on numbers (discussions taught, Books of Mormon given out, new investigators, baptisms), the mindset of a missionary is always optimistic, trying to see the potential in even the most unlikely person. Prostitutes, drunks, the homeless, the mentally ill, children, even the mentally challenged–all are fair game if you look at them just right and catch them on a good day. It’s very easy to justify what will get you those sweet, sweet numbers and make it feel like you aren’t wasting your time and money. You’ll be praised, or if not praised, you’ll be berated less, you might even get a promotion (if you’re an elder), and you’ll be (in my mission’s case) permitted to attend church that week.
That’s one reason that the trailer for this upcoming horror movie is so effective. Watching it, I have totally been where those sister missionaries are. They ask the “safety” question about whether there is also a woman home, and when the answer is the “right” one, they proceed, feeling that all will be fine. In my mission memoir, there were many times I was in unsafe situations. The elders were often in even worse situations as we were being deliberately (and sexistly) protected by placing us in safer housing options.
We were sometimes targets of crime. Twice I had companions who were mugged (one was kind of her fault as I urged her not to go over there, but she chided me for my lack of work ethic in not wanting to approach the obviously stoned guys who were unconvincingly beckoning us to find out more about our “Jesus book,” and the other was a purse-snatching that landed a different companion in the hospital having gravel picked out of her legs). Another time I had kids follow me, trying to steal my gold earrings (tiny hoops that literally cost less than $10). There was an elder in my mission who was kidnapped by a taxi driver, and another one who was stabbed in the butt in a street fight.
There were also a lot of areas we worked that were overrun by drugs and addicts. Elders came home to find a junkie dead in the hallway with a needle still in his arm. In that same apartment, the neighbor across the air shaft slit his wife’s throat one day. When my parents came to pick me up, I took them to visit one of my families, and as we stepped over discarded heroin needles in the street and skirted addicts reaching out to us from the shadows, I realized that maybe it wasn’t really a safe area despite the fact that I had worked that area for a total of 4 months of my mission. Seeing my parents in that context made it clearer to me how unsafe it was, in contrast to how I felt as a young, athletic missionary. Surely I could hold my own in a confrontation, I might have reasoned, but my parents? Yikes, probably not. We looked like easy targets.
As a missionary, you are young and inexperienced and full of a righteous belief that you will be protected, until . . . you aren’t.
And of course, there’s the sexual targeting of missionaries that happens. This is sometimes just harassment: flashers, gropers, frottage on public transportation, or creeps calling you over to watch them masturbate. Sometimes it’s more like oddballs who develop a fixation, veering into stalking. This isn’t exclusively a problem for the sisters. I know of one elder with beautiful hair (at least based on the percentage of each day he devoted to the care, maintenance and bragging about said hair) who was targeted like this, and in Craig Harline’s mission memoir, he also shares a story of someone odd who developed a bit of a sexual interest in them (I won’t spoil it). Every person who has ever served a mission has stories like these, some worse than others, which is one reason I have to think that a TV series about Mormon missionaries could be fantastic if you struck the right notes. Obviously, it has to be about society on the fringes, the flaws of religion, the naivete and colonialism of young missionaries, and the absolutely weird situations you find yourself in as a missionary.
After watching the trailer, my gut reaction was: 1) this could have happened to any of us, and 2) I’m so glad my daughter didn’t serve a mission, even though mine was a mostly positive experience. Maybe that’s because, according to TikTok, I apparently braved danger every day of my young life, roving the neighborhood in a gang of other bike-riding unsupervised youths until dark, drinking from garden hoses, climbing trees, using power tools, and other Gen X stereotypes, all of which are things my Gen Z kids consider scary. But even in the late 80s, the thought of my parents being in the areas I didn’t bat an eye at scared the bejeebus out of me.
While life outside of a mission is not danger-free, let’s get real; missionaries are specifically entering spaces that we never would have if we weren’t missionaries. I ride my bike in a park with homeless people in it, some of whom have very concerning behaviors, but I’m not chatting them up regularly, at dusk, trying to get them to come to church with me.
Yes, there are rules to protect missionaries: being in a companionship, not going out past 10pm, not being alone with a creepy man whose wife isn’t home (unless he convincingly lies about it), but these rules didn’t really protect us ultimately. We mostly just got lucky, and not everyone did. There were times when our spidey senses were tingling enough that we turned around, walked faster, ducked into a bar, didn’t talk to that person, but as I pointed out, at least one companion of mine got mugged when she disagreed with my opinion about safety.
- What dangers did you face as a missionary? Did you feel unsafe or did you believe you would be protected?
- Do you think missions are more or less safe than they used to be? What would you do to make them safer?
- Are missionary activities like knocking doors safe enough in 2024 to be continued?
- Would you want your own kid to serve a mission, knowing the risks?
- Do you think movies like this will impact how parents feel about missions?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
According to a 7th of May 2000 CES talk by Dallin H. Oaks on Miracles (I’ve avoided posting the link since they often get a comment stuck in the queue), a missionary from the United States is essentially eight times safer as a missionary than another American youth of the same demographic. Admittedly, a lot can change in twenty four years.
I served in Denmark during 9/11. I felt mildly unsafe with a small portion of the country’s substantial Muslim population, and the only one ever to threaten my life was a Muslim. I don’t hold that against them.
I think missions are mostly the same now, safety-wise, though it obviously depends on the mission. Frankly, although I admire the zeal of mainstream Christians, I think they could take a page out of our book and show a little more caution with their missionaries and stay more abreast of the political climates. My experience is that mission presidents do a fairly good job judging the local climates.
Knocking on doors was never very effective in the first place. Missionaries are called to teach, not find, as much as we often romanticize the latter in art and literature. I imagine if we as members stepped up we could eventually eliminate the practice. I’ve heard some missions have been able to do this. I sometimes spent forty hours a week knocking on doors.
Despite serving in the first or second lowest baptizing mission in the world (depending on the month), it was well worth it. I’m encouraging my kids to go. I’m not sugar coating the negative aspects in any way.
Not sure how the movie will affect parents. Looks interesting. Nice to see Hugh Grant taking on some different roles.
Very timely post, and thanks. Missionary housing is something of mission president roulette. Some mission presidents seem so pressured to keep costs down that they might approve apartments that are not in safe areas. I think going door to door should probably be generally proscribed. I have changed over the years. I don’t want strangers knocking at my door, just like I don’t want people to call me on my cell phone, unless they have texted first. Jesus doesn’t appear to have gone door to door, and neither did Paul. I disagree that finding isn’t part of missionary work. I agree that teaching is more productive, but I do not agree with throwing fault on members when missionaries don’t have teaching appointments all day every day. Finding is part of missionary work, even if some leaders teach otherwise. The key is how can missionaries find effectively, while also keeping them safe.
I served a mission in Europe and never felt concerned for my safety. My sons went to “safe” places. I would have been uncomfortable with my son going to Mexico. I know the country isn’t totally overrun with drug cartels and there are very decent and good people there, but had a call come to an unsafe place, we would have discussed it very seriously.
I do not think that door to door tracting is safe in 2024 in the United States. It isn’t just crazy people, but it opens the missionaries to accusations of inappropriate conduct. And we have changed. As a child, I remember many times being asked by my mother to see who was at the door. Now I won’t allow a minor child to answer the door: that is my job if I am home, and my wife’s job if I am out.
I was in Nicaragua in 96-98. It was an unstable time after the war and during the first elections. The biggest danger wasn’t people. It was disease. We had intermittent electricity and so no refrigeration and ate most meals with members. Water wasn’t clean or safe. Meat was a risk. I also worked at a hospital for volunteer time and was exposed to a lot of infectious patients without any protective equipment or masks. I lost a lot of weight because I was sick basically all the time and hospitalized once because my immune system crashed and I was full of parasites, amoebas, bacterial and fungal infections.
in addition we were robbed, chased, assaulted and groped multiple times.
I usually tell my mission stories like they are a fun adventure but the reality is we were not safe and put ourselves in a lot of risky situations.
I loved the people I served with and the people in Nicaragua but I am grateful my kids aren’t going on missions.
My husband was in Europe, and it was not safe. He picked up a food born illness (hepatitis of some unknown and hard to treat variety, non A, B, or C) that came close to killing him and the church only provided a quack as a doctor who treated him with methods straight out of the dark ages. Finally a visiting American doctor visited the mission, took one look at the sick missionary, said “what the Hell” and gave strong advice to get him back in the states so he could be treated, and still the mission president treated him like a whining child with sniffles. Eventually he was sent home early, but it was made clear he had failed to complete his mission as an honorable missionary. He still has liver damage 50 years later.
My son went to Brazil, and that was not safe. Machine gun wielding drug dealers on street corners, muggings, knives being pulled on them. They were advised never to carry more than $1, so they had something to give the muggers but no big loss…unless the mugger was angry about getting so little from them and took out his anger on them. There was when the whole mission zone conference of a few hundred got food poisoning and the local hospital was turning them away because it was already overflowing with very sick missionaries. And he was FORBIDDEN to write home about the reality of being there. And all the missionaries were told they *would* get intestinal parasites and to just be treated when they got home.
I am so glad none of my grandchildren have gone and it doesn’t look like any will. Although one is currently fighting social pressure to go. And the kid is autistic and a mission would be a mental health disaster. But the pressure is still there because while the church SAYS that young men with medical issues are excused, they are still pressured into going and shamed if they don’t.
I served in Brazil from 2001 to 2003. I knew a couple missionaries that were mugged but not hurt. We mostly laughed off such dangers; despite how well we dressed, the muggers were only stealing $20 watches and books that we were giving out for free anyway. I think there was one or two stories of apartments being broken into that predated my time. I can only think of one instance where I felt particularly unsafe. We were teaching a discussion to a man who had a few screws loose, and half way through he pulled a gun out of his pocket. He wasn’t threatening us, but telling us how he needed to have the gun for his own protection. I have no idea if he was actually in physical danger, or it was all imagined, but I figured it was high time for us to wrap up our discussion and just leave. I have one other instance when our spidey senses told us to just head home early that night. I don’t know if we were miraculously spared from some danger, or if we were just tired that night.
Physical safety is pretty far down my list of concerns for my kids serving missions. (Mental health concerns top that list. Long hours, scrupulosity, ridiculous rules, etc.) I don’t doubt that missionaries are much safer than their non-missionary peers. Leading causes of death and injury at those ages are all injuries and often stem from “risky” behavior. Kids that age that stay away from alcohol, go to bed early, don’t go rock climbing, don’t go swimming, etc., are going to avoid more of those incidents. As a missionary, I never drove a car either, so that’s another big risk factor. (Obviously, many missionaries do drive cars, and that seems to be the most common cause of missionary deaths.)
I’m not convinced the world is a more dangerous place these days. We certainly have websites that will push notifications to us every time something bad happens though. I’m curious what Georgis’ reason for not letting a minor answer the door is. I can’t even think of an event where a child answering the door caused harm that would have been prevented if an adult answered. (I can, unfortunately, think of incidents where a minor knocking on a door lead to their death.) I don’t think the movie will reduce missionary service any more than The Shining kept people from visiting Colorado or fraternizing with writers; it’s just too fictional to feel real to most people.
I served a mission in Montreal, Quebec from 1999 to 2001. LDS missionaries in Quebec are often confused with Jehovah Witnesses (pas de Témoins de Jéhovah- no Jehovah’s Witnesses was one of the 1st non-MTC French phases I learned).
In the entire mission, but especially the most French areas, we did a lot of knocking on doors. I never experienced any violence as Canada is a relatively safe country (safer than the US). However, when we were knocking on doors in Quebec City, we did have a young lady who appeared to be in her mid 20s come to the door topless (intentionally) in what I can only assume was an attempt to fluster/harass us. We just turned and walked away, but I remember at the time feeling really violated. My companion just laughed it off, but I was quite upset. I was sad and angry that someone would feel so strongly about their perceived annoyance of door-to-door proselyting that they would resort to exhibitionism. I can only imagine such experiences are orders of magnitudes worse for female missionaries, especially in countries less stable than the US/Canada.
I think the biggest danger to missionaries is not external, but mental health issues. My cousin was one of my best friends growing up. He was super athletic, funny, intelligent, and had a bright future. He did 1 semester at the BYU Jerusalem center before his mission. He was sent to Baltimore, MD. He had a psychotic episode while on his mission and came home after about 6 months. He was treated at UNI (now called Huntstman Mental Health Institute) and tried to go back out, but his mental illness got worse. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. He became obsessive and compulsive about religious/spiritual behaviors like reading his scriptures, attending the temple, and endlessly feeling excessive guilt for past sins. Schizophrenia has a biological and environmental component. Apparently the number of missionaries that have a full-blown mental health crisis on a mission is exceptionally high.
LDS missionaries and mental health: The challenges are rising and so is the church’s response
And it makes sense as missions are incredibly stressful. There is internal and external pressure to be successful (e.g., contacts, copies of BoM handed out, investigators taught, # of baptisms), but also many of the coping mechanisms to deal with stress are removed or inadequate (socialization, working out/recreation, going to a movie, playing a video game, watching TV, being alone, etc.). My mission was before email and we could only talk to our famillies via phone 2x per week.
My cousin died by suicide some years later on the streets of Salt Lake in the Rio Grande area. I am convinced that his mental health issues never would have manifested themselves were it not for his mission service. My best friend growing up was in Brazil on a mission. We were in the MTC at the same time. He attempted to cut his wrists as he said he “saw no way out” of his mission. He returned home, got a degree in Computer Science, and has a beautiful family. He never returned to church activity.
If you have children or loved ones with any form of mental illness (anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc.), I strongly would recommend you don’t steer them towards a mission. My mission was an incredible experience, but that is just for me. It is folly to try to extrapolate your good experience to someone else predisposed to mental illness. Because of what I have seen personally, I would never risk allowing my son to serve a mission. This is another major reason why we don’t attend church now. My son is coming of age where he would be in a quorum and incessant pressure would be placed on every young man to serve a mission for the next 6 years. There is no way I want to expose my son to that type of social pressure.
I agree with Dave that I’m more worried about mental health risks than violence. I’m moderately worried about health risks in some places; my brother picked up a parasite in Brazil 15 years ago that stopped his goal of joining the military.
But then I see cute young sisters on social media advertising to come over and do service projects (dishes or whatever you need!) for strangers and I just want to scream.
I just realized in my post above that I said we could only talk to our families 2x per week. It was not 2x per week, it was 2x per year. Again, I am so glad that changed. I think the church is really trying, but it’s not enough for me to reconsider the danger (physical and mental) that I think missionaries are placed in to allow my son to participate.
I think the entire concept of a mission needs to be rethought. Instead of making it 2 years, make it 1 college semester (4 months). Let the missionaries mingle and date in the evenings or have a part-time job. I can see a mission experience where there are co-ed kickball or pickleball games at night in co-ed groups in with intense scripture study/devotional time and a more restricted amount of teaching/proselyting.
A mission should be more like a semester abroad and certianly less restricted/regimented. Get rid of any contacting, knocking on doors, etc. and make the missionaries teachers first and foremost (e.g., don’t require them to generate leads or talk to strangers). If there is no one to teach and willing to hear discussions, that shouldn’t be on the missionaries to generate leads. That’s on the church to figure out a better church experience and build the pipeline for missionaries to teach.
My radical rethink of a mission is to call young men and women to learn a trade and build homes for the homeless, widows, orphans, that would be at the disposition of the bishop or stake president. They could build small homes on church property (Google the YIGBY movemement – Yes in God’s Backyard). Most of the humanitarian assistance that is touted by the Church is actually ward fast offerings that is redistributed to landlords in the form of rental assistance. Our family office has received tens of thousands of dollars from bishops for members struggling to pay the rent, but it doesn’t address the affordable housing situation at a macro level. It’s essentially a landlord subsidy couched as humanitarian assistance.
The best thing that many missionaries get from their mission experience in a new language and cultural experience. I think US state-side missionaries don’t get this. But if missionaries were to develop a trade doing construction (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, drywall, project management, etc.) this might be the new pathway towards a career or practical life experience acquired from a mission that will help them in the next phase of their life. If I am in the church office building with an apostle, this is going to be my elevator pitch.
Like Jacob L. said better than I could: mental health was the biggest danger for me and was for decades after the mission. I went to Brazil, Rio North Mission in the early 90s. I had a lot of wild adventures, similar to others here, that a dumb kid teaching in the dirt poor areas of Brazil is going to have. And a lot of those can be looked at fondly. There were many awesome people I met – the majority were not members. The mental stuff though, that was what hit me the hardest.
I couldn’t kill myself. I wanted to, like one of my companions did. I was a little jealous of him, especially as I rose up the ranks. I’m still trying to make sense of how my mission pres. ran the mission and the tactics he used against us. All because he “loved us” so much. Perhaps some of the most dangerous folks on the mission are the ones leading it.
I was in Ukraine in the early 1990s. I did not generally feel unsafe. I’m sure I did naively believe in being protected, but there wasn’t all that much happening to test that belief. A friend of mine and his companion got beaten up pretty badly once. I don’t know anything about the circumstances, but it’s the only significant problem I was aware of during my two years. We did have a lot of problems with missionaries picking up gastrointestinal illnesses, and I think the church started taking a lot more precautions including installation of water filters in apartments, but that was all after my mission.
Here’s the thing about door knocking: it’s a waste of time, almost all the time, almost everywhere. I’m sure there are safety concerns with door knocking, but it’s only one of many reasons to not do it any more. Is the social media stuff the missionaries do now any better? Who knows? How about we reconceive the whole missionary program around a focus on service and drop all the other nonsense?
My son is close to mission age. He’s pretty noncommittal about it and I’ll be the last one to pressure him, but I’ll support him if he chooses it. If he were to go on a mission in the US, I’d not worry too much. If he went to a relatively poor country somewhere, I might worry a little. But, he also seems to have the kind of street savvy to navigate and get away from sketchy situations. I’d want him to trust those instincts and prioritize self preservation over some notion of “doing God’s work”.
I am happy to criticize the COJCOLDS any time I get the chance but if I am being honest about my mission (Argentina 1985-86) I have to say I never felt unsafe. Not a single time. And we were in some very poor areas. I never got sick. Not a single day. I drank water out of the tap and ate what the locals ate. I never got injured. I guess I was just dang lucky.
As for mental health: I was stressed a lot over mission rules. I was stressed about being a great missionary. I was stressed out about a girlfriend I missed and couldn’t wait to get back to college, cars, etc. I guess I just thought it was normal to be stressed all the time until I got back and discovered life isn’t always that way. Oh, and back then we could only call home twice a year.
I served in the Canary Islands, the same mission sad hawkgrrrl, but several years later. I may have been clueless about the danger but the only time I felt unsafe was when some kids through firecrackers at us; I went deaf for a couple of minutes. I spent most of my mission in the housing projects and talked to many junkies and dealers. The day after one such conversation my companion and I found graffiti talking about us where we had been the day before.
My biggest concern about safety of missionaries is that they do not freely choose much of anything. They don’t choose who they live with or where they live. Two missionaries recently died in a car accident; you know the passenger would have been reluctant to say anything if they felt uncomfortable with their companions driving.
Served in cold war Europe in the early 1980’s. Two phone calls per year. It was ALL tracting, ALL the time. We came across several weird situations – some harmless, some not so harmless. But as a bold 19 year old, the not-so-harmless ones added some excitement to the day. Only twice did we fear for our lives – a guy held a gun to our faces when he opened the door. Another time we got trapped after tracting out some russians – who then locked us in their apartment until about 4am and then decided to let us go. Never once did we tell the MP about things like that. It never occurred to us. We were stupidly and actively on the hunt for baptisms – consequences be damned.
But on the mental side – it was much more brutal. Day after day knocking on doors. There were weeks when we likely knocked 1000 doors and were invited in once. That kind of rejection is not healthy. I saw the mental fatigue in several companions. For most of us it was a strange badge of honor to have survived, but no one thrived. I would not wish that on anyone.
I served in Albuquerque, El Paso and Hobbs NM. My mission was mostly safe. When Elders in our mission were sent home for making moves on an investigator’s daughter, my companion and I were the only Spanish speaking missionaries in our end of El Paso for a time. We were told to bring an adult male member into the projects with us whenever we visited the multiple people taking lessons there. Of course that didn’t work out. We just went anyway. We were clearly closely observed. For instance once while we were teaching, a man we didn’t know, knocked on the investigators door and asked us to move our car.
Really the biggest danger in my mission was heat exhaustion, and car wrecks. Car wrecks are a real danger because the young missionaries really drive stupidly and dangerously. When I served in Hobbs we had zone meeting 2 hours away in Roswell. The district leader drove the 4 of us (his companion and me and my companion which was the district). He drove over 100 miles an hour on tiny 2 lane roads going through empty country and tiny towns. He wouldn’t slow down for the towns, but would pass illegally on the shoulder of the road on the right side of the slow going cars that would appear in front of him. My companion and just quietly sat in the back seat and never said a word to our younger district leader. But of course we were just Sisters honoring our leaders in the patriarchy. We didn’t dare say or do anything about it.
On the way back he actually drove into the back of another car as we went through Lovington. Lovington had had enough of our missionaries. The missionaries had been pulled out of there for having sex with an underage girl who was apparently related to everyone in town. The police put my district leader in jail. The branch president came and bailed him out, and then we drove back to Hobbs: with the same district leader driving the same car. None of us were seriously injured.
I was injured the next month in a car accident that wasn’t my companion’s fault. But she was a terrible driver. It was pure luck she didn’t cause an accident. I never dared say anything to her either because she was so on edge that anything I said would make things worse.
I don’t have any answers for you. Maybe teach our missionaries to speak up when someone is doing something dangerous? Reward them for back talking their leaders even if they are women? Oh… wait a minute. That violates our entire culture. I guess we have to just be quiet while our leaders drive into other cars, literally and figuratively.
It is a little disturbing how strongly the “just say nice things” imperative is, with so little regard given to the duty to “be truthful.” In the bassackwards way the Church communicates this: Be “true” to the Church by saying nice but untruthful things about the Church.
If this is how missionaries are taught (or somehow figure out) to *not* talk about bad experiences with family back home or with their own Mission Presidents, it probably extends to how Mission Presidents do not talk about bad things to their supervising GAs (and honestly, I can’t say who, if anyone, actually monitors or supervises the activities of Mission Presidents).
Companies and organizations that take this approach to communications within the organization don’t do so well. I wonder if this defective communications strategy is partly to blame for how unproductive most LDS proselyting operations are? Note that this is the fault of bad management, not bad missionaries.
There does seem to be a trend in these comments as several have pointed out that the unwritten rule is that you don’t say anything about unsafe situations to outsiders. Rockwell points out that although we served in the same mission, maybe safety was different at different times (or we perceived it differently). My guess is that it’s related to the fact that when I served, the mission was newly formed, and the president had to find enough housing to double the number of missionaries. Many of these pisos (apartments) were in unsavory areas. These were mostly given to the elders, under the assumption that they were physically less vulnerable, which is probably true. I assume that over time the unsafe pisos were replaced with better ones. Since we still paid our own rent directly at the time, I know from talking to elders that the sisters were often paying half again as much in rent because we were in better places. Even so, most of these pisos weren’t great by US standards. They were just in better neighborhoods.
As for the effectiveness of tracting, my biggest fear lately for those serving in the US isn’t that they will knock on a serial killer’s door, but that there have been so many changes to gun laws and “stand your ground” laws, especially in some specific states. Last year a woman was shot for turning around in someone’s driveway. A young boy was shot when he went to pick up his sibling at the wrong house. There are some wacko gun nuts holed up in their “castles” who think every stranger on the doorstep is a threat to be dispatched with their best friends Smith & Wesson. It’s appalling that it’s come to this, but when I read both those stories, my immediate thought was that door-knocking may not be safe anymore.
The most significant family I taught and baptized as a missionary was one we found through door-knocking. The parents became leaders in the district. The oldest son served a mission. The youngest son has since served a mission where he found his husband and has remained in the country he served in to be with him. The Lord works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
I honestly thought these unsafe incidents were funny at the time, badges of honor maybe, definitely not something I was very worried about. I only thought differently when my parents visited later, and thinking about my daughter being in those situations. I’ve been back a few times, and it’s generally safer now than it was then.
One woman we taught was a very eccentric German alcoholic living in Playa del Hombre who had photo albums full of her with her former roommate Liza Minnelli, pictures of her at Studio 54, boating with Frank Sinatra. She had wardrobes full of silky Halstein dresses and jumpsuits. She also said that “any minute now a bullet could be coming through that window for her” because her son had some kind of mob ties and was on the run from them. Was she delusional? Was a bullet going to come through the window? Who’s to say? I got transferred a month later, so I’ll never know.
My older brother and I both served in former soviet countries. He served in the first cohort of missionaries for a country after the wall fell, and I served in a different mission (nearby) a few years later. At that time, missionaries were more diverse than they are now. We were older. My brother had a few years of college under his belt and was one of those language nerds. I became a sister missionary at age 23 with my bachelor’s degree in hand- having studied abroad focusing on Slavic language, and Eastern European history and contemporary poli-sci. Most of the sister missionaries in my mission had similarly studied abroad or taught ESL in various parts of the post-soviet world.
Members frequently think that “missionaries don’t need no book-learnin or age to spread the gospel”. But, no RM who served in a challenging area to can deny that native companions (and native mission leaders), special missionaries with extraordinary talent (such as brilliant linguists), and missionaries who were prepared with unique backgrounds were absolutely necessary to get things done and safeguarded their districts and missions time and again with or without leadership titles. Just because Joseph F. Smith served a Hawaiian mission at age 15 doesn’t mean that was safe, or that OTHER OLDER men didn’t pave the way for him. 15 and 18/19 year olds don’t make this happen by themselves, even when on G-‘s errand.
Nowadays missionaries are so much younger (18, 19) and older missionaries are less common. These new and even MORE homogeneous missionaries (yes, that was evidently possible) are more naive, less experienced. They’ve grown up in the age of helicopter parents and spent much of their high school years under COVID. I worry that this homogeneity is UNSAFE and UNPRODUCTIVE. We need diversity and experience. But, the more stringent mission admission rules and the cultural focus on conformity is strangling out our safeguards and the unique way that the Lord would prepare servants for this work.
I served in Ukraine in the early 90s. I don’t remember ever feeling unsafe. A couple of the elders in our mission got mugged and beaten, but they bragged about it at Zone Conference so I guess it wasn’t that traumatic. We had visa problems — one day we all got told to stay out of our apartments because the govt knew where we lived. I never had any actual problems or threats though. Our apartments were in normal areas – not scary and not fancy.
We were all supposed to boil the water before we drank it. The whole country loves tea, so I drank herbal tea for 18 months. Water filters were installed in all mission apartments a few months before I left. Some of the missionaries got parasites or other serious illnesses, but my only illness was a mild cold once in a while.
We didn’t knock doors. Ever. We street contacted, meaning we found an area with high foot traffic and approached anyone who made eye contact with us and waved a Book of Mormon in their faces and asked if they liked to read. I filled up a couple notebooks with phone numbers and names. We’d call them later, and get maybe a couple appointments from a day of street contacting, and one or both would fall through. Street contacting wasn’t any more productive than knocking doors. It felt safer though – we were out in public places.
No driving. No one in the mission had a car except the President and he hired a driver. We took public transit, or occasionally hitch-hiked. Hitch-hiking was normal; it was like asking for a taxi. Picture Uber without the app. You just stood on the street with your arm in hailing position, someone pulled over, you said where you wanted to go, they said the price, then you either waved them off or got in the car. My mission is where I developed my lifelong love of public transit.
Mental health was a challenge, but I only noticed in retrospect. I had a great, fabulous, wonderful mission experience, except I can’t stand to read my mission journals because apparently I blocked out all the negative experiences after writing them down.
Part of the reason I let my oldest son drop out of Church just before his 12th birthday is that I knew he wouldn’t serve a mission due to some challenges he has, and I didn’t want him to feel pressured to serve that he would encounter at Church.
That movie looks really interesting. I’ll see it when it’s on a streaming service.
I was in Ireland in 68 to 70 when there was a war between the Catholics and protestants. We did have a mission rule that if you hear shooting go back to accomodation. Never did. Mostly we tracted.
I was amused by the person being affronted by a topless canadian girl. I had a companion who had a collection of playboy magazines. I had not read one before. I’m sure if he met a top less woman, he would look as long as she stayed. A good proportion of missionaries called from Australia go to Nugini where most of the women are topless. For that matter we go for a walk on the beach at least once a month. Most younger women wear thong swimwear, most with tops. I do wonder how missionaries from Utah and Idaho respond to the naked bottoms walking home from the beach.
I did have a DL whose girlfriend came from California, and they went off for a week together. Mental health was not a thing back then but I’m sure his mental health improved after that. Perhaps a suggestion for SLC?
I was not aware of feeling unsafe except when chased by large dogs, and once held up by troops we had photographed patrolling among shoppers on a street.
I served in Texas in the 1990s. I don’t recall ever feeling particularly unsafe. Like many others have already said, it was my mental health that took the hardest hit. I was deeply depressed when the high-pressure sales tactics of my mission got to be too much for me. I probably should have gone home early, but at the time, it just wasn’t a thing that was done (or was hardly ever done). Now, I always look at the names of newly-called GAs to see if the zone leaders who were meanest to me have inevitably risen in the Church hierarchy yet.
As some have mentioned, a mission is statistically a very safe activity for young adults. But missions are not entirely safe and this leads to shock when a missionary is hurt or killed. I second the point made by Rockwell that a key issue is missionaries are coerced into unsafe situations. The most unsafe I ever felt as a missionary was being in a car driven by a branch mission leader. If not for the expectation we were “on the Lord’s call” I would have refused to be a passenger with that man driving!
The mental / emotional pressure was a real factor for me. It all started when I decided to take my mission seriously! Prior to that I was an aloof kid giving my senior companion grief because I was so insincere.
So I decided to care and that resulted in me experiencing a stress and weight of conflicted feelings that I greatly struggled to resolve. Yes, this experience made me spiritually stronger. But no, it was not ideal nor would I wish it on anyone. For 8 months I was depressed and giving a facade of happiness while inside I was in turmoil.
Looking back I see I was not the only missionary struggling. I always remember a companion commenting “Missions are the greatest secret in the church.” True. No amount of preparation prepares you for the whirlwind of social, emotional, physical and spiritual challenges you encounter as a missionary.
Two of my kids I did not encourage to serve missions because I discerned their personalities would lead them to tremendous frustration in the mission environment. A missionary needs to be socially adept or very submissive. Those with personalities lacking these traits will find themselves pounding their head against concrete!
I think it is time for the LDS leadership to overhaul the mission program. First change would be to end the 18-month / 2-year assignment. For example, if kids attending BYU-Idaho have “off semesters” why not allow them to serve as missionaries during that break? For any native language mission, there is no core reason for a mission to be of extended duration.
Some mentioned topless women answering the door. That is nothing compared to the women my husband saw in Austria. The prostitutes open their door in their birthday suits. They got a HUGE kick out of traumatizing self righteous Mormon missionaries. My husband thought it was funny because he had several companions totally freak out and insist on returning to their apartment and spending the next day or two fasting and repenting of their thoughts. It was a frequent experience because as soon as they started tracking, the word would go out, with people shouting, “the Mormon Missionaries, the Mormon missionaries.” Doors would slam shut and blinds would be pulled down, and the prostitutes would get naked, and the hostile people would pick up weapons. Austria was Catholic and very hostile to other religions. So, he was threatened at the door step with shovels, pick axes, boiling water, and other such. He was only actually attacked once with a fire poker.
As to telling outsiders or the folks back home about the dangers, my son said they were threatened if they wrote home about any of the dangers or hardships they faced. The mission president even yelled at them that he didn’t want any of them “whining to their parents.” So, it isn’t just the mission culture or Mormon culture not to speak up, but it is RULES. So, we didn’t hear about the drug dealers on the corners guarding their sales territory from other dealers, with machine guns. We didn’t hear about the frequent muggings that any American was a favorite target, or the poverty conditions of the people they taught. So, it wasn’t until he got home that he told us about making friends with the drug dealers so they would let you into their territory. Just give them a name of the person you want to go visit, assure them you carried little cash and no other valuables, and that you were religious missionaries, then they were fine letting you visit your family, then tract the neighborhood. He didn’t tell us until he was home about getting mugged and his companion being stabbed and trying to get the bleeding companion to the hospital so his intestines could be stitched back up. Yeah, we didn’t even know about the food poisoning of several hundred missionaries with one death, because although it hit international news, the church kept that news out of the US. So, OK, my son was in the slums of Rio. He felt worst about being forbidden to visit the beach of Ipanema
But, not dangerous at all. [end sarcasm]
Missions could be safer. I get that there may be certain protections on missions because missionaries are generally not out partying or driving while intoxicated, but Oaks’ comparison of mission safety to that of young adults not serving is an unfair and inappropriate comparison.
Oaks’ comparison masks negligence on the part of the church. Selection bias can play into the statistics. A young adult with a terminal illness does not get called to serve. Likewise young adults with other disorders do not get called. Prospective missionaries are screened for physical and mental health and only the healthier missionaries get called.
Too many of the mission fatalities we hear about result from negligence on the part of the church:
-Missionaries riding bikes in the dark or dusk hours of the evening without proper lighting and without navigation systems that would help them to choose safer routes.
-Missionaries who are riding bikes in conditions or on roads where riding is unsafe.
-Missionaries who are unable or discouraged from accessing appropriate medical care.
-Missionaries who are pressured to contact individuals at hours when it is unsafe or in locations where it is unsafe or both.
-Missionaries who live in locations that do not have safe wiring or where other hazards exist.
-Missionaries who are pressured to travel on snowy or icy roads.
-Missionaries who are pressured to be street contacting in clothing that is not appropriate for hot climates and at hours where there is increased risk of heat-related conditions.
-Missionaries who serve in locations where there is exposure to hurricanes, earthquakes, or tornadoes who are not given proper education about these events and what to do when they occur.
-Missionaries who are restricted from access to radio or other media where they may receive warnings of or updates about predicted dangerous events.
-Missionaries who are restricted from contacting parents and other supports (once a week is better than in the past but really is still not adequate) who may help them navigate health issues that randomly arise–yes the mission president and his wife can help with this but too many missionaries will not contact them knowing how busy they are.
-Missionaries who are exposed to unnecessary psychological stressors during a time in life when they’re at increased risk of developing serious mental illness.
-Missionaries who are subject to the judgement of a mission president when they are experiencing stalking or other dangers but are not free to do what is necessary to keep themselves safe.
-Missionaries who serve with abusive companions and do not have choice to leave when either physical, psychological, or emotional abuse occurs and who have limited access to family who might help them navigate challenging situations.
So many of the risks missionaries experience are unnecessary. Change needs to happen on systemic levels which might include allowing all stakeholders a greater voice in how missions are run. The consolidation of power to very select groups of leaders certainly contributes to so many of the problems that exist in the missionary program.
Total props to Janey for her service and shared experiences, but I’m going to say- that the blaze (accent mark on the “e”) way that missionaries describe dangerous situations exacerbates the risk we put missionaries in. Yes, post soviet countries experienced a low crime rate following the fall, but Ukraine’s mission has been chronically unstable- with *several* evacuations, regions/cities closing, the bloody Maidan revolution, and now- the war. Were there periods of safety? Yes, underscored by unpredictable political tension and a broken and limping infrastructure (so no or sparse ambulances, healthcare, police, fire dept., post offices, water, electricity, sanitation, trade, etc.)
I used to think we would be ok because our mission president had CNN at the mission home and was supposed to be watching the news daily to protect us. Now that I am older, I realize that my mission president had zero international policy experience. These days, he subscribes to Trumpian politics and follows Fox “news”. I shudder to think that someone with that little critical thinking was entrusted with my life and the lives of 120 other missionaries in a dangerous part of the world. We also thought that there was a department in the church office building somewhere watching global news and monitoring all 300+ missions day-by-day and would call the mission president on some sort of bat phone to tell us to evacuate if needed. Can anyone tell me if that is a real thing? That’s what we believed at the time.
We were young adults that thought we were invincible. The fact that Elders have been consistently beaten up since your service as well as imprisoned (my experience) in these countries is alarming. Couple that with the fact that mission presidents put gag orders on missionaries telling parents about being harmed and likely don’t report this to SLC, is is troubling to say the least.
And, let’s just pause to reflect on hitchhiking for a moment. Yes, there is an informal cash-based hitchhiking culture in many countries, but it’s definitely unsafe. We all know what ONE bad experience using this system could mean. And (see mention of constant gag orders about being harmed above), we don’t know how often that has happened. Just because Janey’s sister companionship remained safe during her mission doesn’t mean it didn’t happen elsewhere to others. Was I hurt? yes- three times. Did I mentally suppress the fact that I literally dodged bullets and experienced several attacks for which I pay a lot of money nowadays in therapy to maintain in the past? Yes. And I don’t joke about it. Neither do I brag about how tough I am or how cool it was.
The fact remains though that even though these experiences continue across the missions. Our own President Nelson and his second wife were kidnapped about 15 years ago in Africa and held for ransom with broken arms. We have the ‘Saratov Approach’ movie (based on the true story of Russian LDS missionaries kidnapped in the early 90’s- a parallel time to Janey’s mission), and several tell-all posts like this on the bloggernacle. Missions ARE dangerous. Absolutely. The safety of missionaries is secondary to their mission.
Yet LDS missions aren’t going to change. If you go to the temple- pray for the missionaries. If you have kids going out- teach them safety techniques. . Seriously. No one else will. Read Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear”. Talk to military experts about safety tactics. Think about putting kids in YEARS of martial arts self defense classes and have them earn their black belts.
It’s the tradition of Paul, of all the early apostles, of the early Christian and Latter-day saints, to sacrifice for the gospel. If mission violence increased, we would still send out the missionaries. There’s a non-LDS, but evangelical project called “Voices of the Martyrs” which advocates fro Christians held as political prisoners in countries were proselytizing is illegal. They also spread the word about the sacrifices and persecution of Christians. It’s popular. There is zeal not only in Mormondom, but elsewhere for such advocacy and danger.
I can’t stop it, but I can lend a tone of seriousness to the conversation. And, I would love to work with T&S to advocate for four things:
1) transparency re: mission violence. Couldn’t we crowd-source information about this while advocating that stats be kept in missions, the gag orders removed, and mission reports on violence be made available to entering missionaries?
2) Evaluate missions where missionaries are routinely beaten or attacked by street gangs.
What are missionaries doing to provoke? (Let’s not pretend that we are always innocent. We may be making serious cultural mistakes or unintentionally threatening locals. we shouldn’t jump to the binary “us good, them bad” mentality and EVALUATE what is happening.
2) the purple heart project for RMs who come home early or are mentally or physically injured.
3) the re-allocation of the left-over granite from the SLC temple “renovation” project that is currently earmarked for the gravestones of President Nelson and the Q15 to be transferred from the current Q15 and reserved for the headstones of missionaries who die in the line of duty.
Add to Mortimer’s list,
4. The church should continue to pay for the medical care of missionaries who return early because of illness. I have known of missionaries sent home for mental health whose parents could not pay for continued mental health care. Many insurance plans have no mental health coverage and it gets very expensive. If the mission causes the problem, the church should pay for it.
a. When the church sues for malpractice as was done in my husband’s case, the missionary with life long injuries should get the money. Not the church who sent them to a quack to begin with.
b. The church culture of shaming missionaries who come home early needs to change. These missionaries not only fulfilled an honorable mission, they sacrificed their health for the church. They should not be shamed for coming home as wounded warriors.
Yes. Transparency (meaning honesty rather than deception) and encouraging people to speak up about problems. These are simple things that taught in Primary and Scouts. Yet as a larger organization we cannot adhere even to these simple standards. Loyalty is not more important than being accountable and trustworthy.
would love to know more about the granite from the temple
Brian, here’s a SL Trib post about President Nelson’s SL Temple granite headstone
Anna, amen to your additions. I wonder if it would be possible for the church to pay for an employee assistance program (EAP) for all RMs that would provide 6 free counseling sessions within the first three years of returning home. Most jobs provide EAPs, why couldn’t we? Those sessions could at the very least help diagnose more serious mental health needs.
lws329, I agree.
Could the person who consistently gives me a thumbs down on this blog no matter what I say please step forward and let me know what I did to tick you off?
Thanks, Mortimer, for the SL Tribune link. I hadn’t seen a photo of the tombstone. It looks very impressive and big, much bigger than any other tombstone in the picture, at least in the angle shown on the website. Fashions in clothes and furniture change from time to time, and maybe they do also in tombstones. Surely it isn’t ostentatious, gaudy, or immodest, so maybe this is where we’re headed in modern tombstones, at least in the American west. The monument doesn’t call him father or husband or even physician, but it does show his church title.
There was a protocol for burying a Habsburg emperor. The casket is brought to the Capuchin Church in Vienna which contains the imperial crypy. The Grand Chamberlain knocks three times with a silver cane on the door of the Capuchin convent. The Capuchin porter asks: – “Who is there?”
The Grand Chamberlain proclaims the name and titles of the deceased Hapsburg emperor: “I am (Name) … Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, of Illyria, and King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, Duke of Lorraine , Salzburg, Carinthia, of Carniola and Bukovina, Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator of Ticino, Friuli, Ragusa and Zara, Prince of Conde-Hapsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, in Goritz and Gradisca, Prince of Trent and Brixen, Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Istria, Earl of Hohenembs of Feldkirch of Brigance, in Sonnenberg, Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro and Marche, Great Voivode of Serbia, etc. … ”
Upon hearing this, the porter refuses to open the door and says: “I do not know you.”
The Grand Chamberlain knocks on the door again and in answer to the porter’s question “Who is there?” gives just the name of the deceased prince: “I am (Name) … His Majesty the Emperor and the King. ” The porter again refuses admission: “I do not know you.”
For a third time, the Grand Chamberlain knocks on the door and the porter asks anew, “Who is there?” This time, the Grand Chamberlain simply says: “I am (Name)… a poor mortal and a sinner.” To this, the Capuchin friar responds: “Come in.” The doors are opened and the emperor’s casket is carried inside.
The Traditional Burial Ceremony of a Hapsburg Prince – Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites
I like that. A poor mortal and a sinner. That describes me, although I have no Hapsburg blood in my veins.
To answer DaveW’s question: I agree that things are generally not more dangerous than they used to be. I have never had a person at my door who intended violence. But I do look my doors at night. Still, I will go to the door, and if there is a bullet or knife to take, I will take it. There is no obsession, and I never screamed at my wife or children if they got to the door before me. But if I am home, even if I am sitting in my chair with my shoes off and feet up, I get up and head to the door pronto if someone knocks. I just do. I am more than happy to let someone else answer the phone, however!
Mortimer – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for my post to sound flippant or dismissive of mission dangers. I was nervous the first couple of times we “hitch-hiked” but I was also one of those missionaries who assumed I would be protected because I was on the Lord’s errand. As far as I know, no one in my mission was attacked while hitch-hiking, but I acknowledge that if a missionary was told not to talk about it, I may not have heard everything.
Not as an excuse, but an explanation. I had been raised to disregard extreme danger and to laugh off threats of death. It was a coping mechanism. My father was a violent man. I saw beatings at home that were worse than anything I ever saw on my mission. My father regularly threatened to beat us to death for disobedience, or even just making a mistake. Any mention of mental illness or mental health was forbidden in my family, upon pain of my father’s fury.
Listening to the elders joke/brag about being mugged and beaten was a lot like listening to my brothers joke/brag about my father’s attacks on them. I thought that was just how people dealt with being in actual physical danger – crack jokes and act like it was no big deal.
My ideas of danger were skewed by my upbringing. I never felt safe at home; I felt safe in my mission. That says more about my home than it does about my mission in a post-Soviet country that presented real risks for missionaries.
I lot of good comments in this post. It is clear that we all tend to be influenced by our own experiences or those of our children that serve. I served in NYC Spanish in the late 70’s when NYC hit rock bottom. I served in some of the worst ghettos. Got jumped once. Wasn’t hurt, just shaken up. Didn’t tell my parents, but mentioned it to a friend serving in Europe. The word spread and grew to include that I was knifed in a gang fight. One day in Brooklyn a guy said something about us in Spanish and I responded to him in Spanish. He was surprised and we ended up having a nice conversation. He was impressed that gringos in NY would even try to speak Spanish. A few weeks later he walks past us on the street. We had a kid from the branch with us. He says, “Do you know who that is. He is the head gang leader in Brooklyn.” Later kid tells us that George put the word out that we were not to be hassled by any of the gangs. So our guardian angle was an unlikely gang boss.
30 years later we served in one of the worst areas in Chile. Missionary safety and health was our top concern. We made sure all apartments were safe, installed security systems in all the sisters apartments. Made sure every apartment and a fire extinguisher and basic tool kit and produced some training videos on how to maintain an apartment. We moved missionaries out of apartments that were not safe. We did training every year on personal safety. Some missionaries don’t really know how to do basic cleaning and maintenance. Most missionaries did ok, those that didn’t and experienced health or stress related issues spared no expense for medical and counseling services. We probably had the highest average medical costs in South America South. Not once did I feel any pressure or even talked to about keeping medical costs or housing costs down. The Area President in fact told us to make sure every apartment was one we would not our son to live in, who was serving at the time in the States. There were two days each year that were major protest days where the missionaries stayed in their homes. I watched local news and talked to my counselors frequently about local politics and protests and were swell aware when missionaries should say in.
Much of this comes down to the attitude and style of the leadership. It is very difficult to know a prospective MP’s attitude about missionary work, politics, management, etc. I know there is some level of background check done. The training is actually very good. The problem is MP muscle memory. Despite what the training from Q12 is many get on their mission and their mission muscle memory kicks in. There are wide swings and attitudes. For example I knew an MP in the Area who’s approach was, “My job is to get them in the front door, it’s the local leaders who have the job to keep them.” They baptized a lot but their average attendance remained static. Our approach was to strengthen the local units not simply to add numbers to a report. Attendance increased 10 fold. The MP that followed us had same the approach. Then the subsequent MP went right back to a counting sheep instead of feeding them and attendance tanked.
I read Hawkgrrrls memoir and loved it. I’ve written one looking at two missions 30 years apart. Probably will not ever publish it. It is mainly for my family, since I’ve named names of the good and bad actors. My main point is despite inspiration or lack thereof the Church is run by flawed humans at every level. Some are great, some are disasters. But despite all of the human and institutional flaws I hope to keep plugging along trying to do my part to lighten someone else burden.
PS the Service Mission Program is marvelous. Maybe I should do a post on that. Happy post 4th. Let’s all work like hell to keep our democracy in the age of Christofacism.
PSS to the Utahans on here thanks for mostly voting down the nuts in the R primary.
Janey,
I am so sorry to hear about your experiences at home and relating to dangerous situations. I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that your response was not authentic, I just worried.
But thank you for sharing, and providing that perspective because there is dysfunction in laughing at or dismissing violence and danger. Oprah will often laugh and speak nostalgically about having to get a switch from the willow tree to get a whooping as a little kid. People who relate to that will join in the laughter with her. It’s not a nervous chuckle, but knee-slapping joking. Maybe it is a survival mechanism. It makes me cringe- there is nothing funny or happy or nostalgic about children being whipped.
And, similarly, I think our cumulative dismissal of the dangers of missions is dysfunctional. Im just saying- we all need more perspective and TLC. Let’s have better transparency and stop the gag orders. Let’s even start being a record-keeping people and record incidents and study them and start being safer. Right now- they are being shuffled under the rug by companionships, districts, and missions. And, let’s do more to care for our injured missionaries both during the mission and after. But, the first step is recognizing there is a problem. We’re stuck at that step.
Mortimer – you’re right to worry, absolutely right. I’ve worked for years to readjust my ideas about violence and danger. My tone in my first comment needed to be called out. Flippancy about danger is not healthy. “Minimizing” is one of the ways we tolerate abuse.
Here’s a type of mission danger I haven’t heard mentioned in this thread yet: Attacks by mission companions. I heard a missionary tell a story about the time he was hit so hard by his companion that it deviated his septum and he had to have surgery to correct it. I can’t remember if the attacking companion got sent home, or if they just split up the companionship. He didn’t laugh when he told that story. He knew it was messed up. His parents were (rightly) furious about it.
Giving a virtual high five, Janey!
Also, I agree- companion violence should be addressed. But, difficult companions, violence, and other “trials” are all part of what we’ve culturally constructed as a type of appropriate hazing.
Mortimer – yay! we’re friends!
Mortimer – I really love your ideas for how to reform missions, especially the purple heart idea! One thing I’d like to see is having young prospective missionaries give input as to where they would prefer to serve and be able to decline a mission call if it doesn’t match up with their list of preferences. Given that I served 25 years ago, I’m not sure how it is done today. But when I put in my mission application, there was a bio form including how many years of language experience I had (I had 3 years of French, hence why I probably got called to Quebec). But I think the church could do a lot better. Gale and Shapley won the Nobel prize for matching markets and this is used in multiple settings for matching markets. From what I understand, senior missionaries have more say in where they choose to serve (please correct me if I am wrong).
My grandparents on my father’s side passed away and they established a missionary trust fund to pay the way for any grandchild to serve a mission if he/she wanted to. It wasn’t limited to younger missionaries though and because of that it has kind of been abused. What happened was that my aunt and uncle who have a very nice house in Bountiful, Utah and decided that they wanted to go on a vacation (read: mission) in Victoria, Canada. So that is where they went! But my understanding (again, please correct if I am wrong) is that senior mission costs are not equalized. So my aunt and uncle used a good chunk of my grandparents’ trust fund (which was primarily designed for younger grandchildren missionaries) for their own misison service even though they were both retired, had their house paid for, and were financially comfortable. To my knowledge, they didn’t do any door knocking or were never in any dangerous situations. I think they were senior couple missionaries or office missionaries and just helped in local wards or something. They sure did lots of sight-seeing and had some amazing pictures to show (and great healthcare too). All the while they were renting out their home in Bountiful making good money. My dad jokes that going on a mission was the best financial decision they could have made. They can’t wait to go again!
“Rockwell points out that although we served in the same mission, maybe safety was different at different times (or we perceived it differently).”
Yes, I was referring mostly to perception, but I do think our pisos were generally in safe neighborhoods.
The missionary kids are out there selling a fake product, partly based on “Joseph Smith’s inaccurate translations of Egyptian funerary papyrii” (mentioned in a comment on another post here), all for the low price of 10% a month.
A neighbor is the daughter of a former GA/mission president in “Eastern Europe.” He was also a doctor and there was a supply of anti-depressants in the mission home. Draw your own conclusions…
I long for the day when some brave missionary parents will sue the Church for negligence when a death occurs.
Another day, another cynical comment from Chet.
Jacob L.,
Thanks! Together we have many ideas that should be explored! But I can’t take credit for the RM Purple Heart idea isn’t mine. There’s been a push for many years in different parts of the bloggernacle and I thought there was even an official project/initiative. I don’t know its status. Seems like n easy thing to do.
I have some good friends whose grandson was murdered on his mission in Atlanta a few years ago. Hit and run driver while riding their bikes on the side of the road. The FBI never did find the killer. I lived a few years around Atlanta, and the anti-Mormon climate was very palpable. I had a co-worker whose children were assaulted at school by “good” Baptists who were taught in their church that Mormons were evil.
I just hope the movie doesn’t give bad people the idea to act on them the next time missionaries knock on the door.
Mem, there’s a quote attributed to many people from Ghandi to Mother Teresa to President Monson. They repeat it in their own words. “People will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
This horror movie SAYS that the sister missionaries win in the end, but it creates the FEELING of horror and terror for two hours all while associating that feeling with sister missionaries. I don’t care what the plot is or whether in the short denouement of the story the heroes come out scarred and faith shaken, but faithful. The feeling is horror and paranormal evil.
The PEW research polls consistently rank us among the least liked/most disliked religious groups in the country. After the BOM Broadway show and the negative Mormon moments, we have this. Can someone tell me why other religious minority groups who are slandered and targeted raise a flag and say “hey- this is biased and prejudiced and unacceptable” and we just keep turning the other check without ever calling it out?
One unexpected dangerous aspect of missions that I got to experience on mine, is that your Companion can be a danger to you.
My second companion was notorious in my mission for beating up every other one of his companions into a bloody pulp. He would then be quickly transferred to some other missionary afterwards (usually a greenie who had no idea what they were getting into).
A lot of the mission experience depends on who your companion is at the time, if you have someone who is really controlling/emotionally manipulative/physically abusive, congrats you are stuck with them for at least the next 6 weeks.
Zwingli,
Something similar happened to my husband on his mission as well. He asked to be transferred immediately after the guy hit him the first time. Then companion spread rumors around the mission and everyone started treating my husband differently, including the mission president. My husband thought the rumor was that he was gay.
My daughter is currently serving in a foreign mission where all missionaries exclusively use bicycles for transportation. The traffic situation in this country is very chaotic (I’ve personally been there multiple times)–there is nothing in the US that even comes close. There was a time when there were more bicycles on the streets, but those days are long, long gone–it’s now a bunch of cars and a ton of motorcycles/motor scooters zipping around in between the cars. It’s really insane, and there are accidents all the time. I don’t know the body count, but there have been multiple missionaries killed riding their bikes there over the years, and of course, many more injured missionaries as well.
Last week, my daughter and her companion were pulled over by a traffic cop who gave them a stern warning that riding bicycles in that country is very dangerous, and he wanted them to stop. Riding bikes is not illegal, though, so all my daughter could do was nod her head, thank the police officer for his concern, shrug her shoulders, and ride on.
This country has a very good and cheap public transportation system. Taxis are also quite inexpensive in this country, and most missionaries cover small areas, so taxi rides would be short and cheap. I do think that having missionaries ride public transportation and then using taxis to fill in the gaps where public transportation didn’t work well would be a lot safer than riding bicycles. It would require the Church to pay a little bit more for fares, but again, these costs are much lower than in the US, and I feel like the increased safety would definitely be worth the extra cost.
Thankfully, my daughter doesn’t have too much time remaining. In the meantime, I continue to bite my fingernails into my flesh wondering if I’m going to get a phone call informing me that my daughter has been in a serious accident.
mountainclimber479: That’s nerve-wracking, worrying about your daughter’s safety. In my mission, we did not have cars or bicycles, instead relying on walking, public transportation and taxis. It was mostly fine, but in two areas caused an issue. In one, our area was a 45 minute walk each way through a rocky field (and past a naked man who hung out between two high walls we had to walk through and was completely unavoidable as a result), and I ended up at the doctor with some serious foot pain. In another area, we couldn’t find a taxi (I think we were returning from p-day), and there was no bus for at least an hour, so we hitch-hiked. That ended OK, but it’s not like that’s a foregone conclusion that it will end OK. A very sexy Jesus guy picked us up (he looked like a sexy Jesus), and we did teach him a discussion and give him a BOM, but then our extremely sexist ZL (or DL? Can’t remember) accused us of going clubbing with this guy which was outrageous. He drove us to the chapel for a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with ward members. That specific “leader” went on a rant about why sisters had no business being on a mission because we were all a distraction and off doing whatever we wanted. He was an idiot.
Mountainclimber, this is completely unacceptable. Personally I cannot understand why we as parents are not in direct contact with mission presidents challenging them about the dangers they are exposing our kids to. And telling our kids to get on the next plane home. Or going to pick them up. Why do we cede our personal power and revelation to those who clearly do not have our kid’s safety front and centre of their minds?
wayfarer: When one of my friends in the mission wrote home about their living conditions, his alarmed parents called the MP who then went to the elder and said, “Elder, there are some things we just don’t tell our mothers.” So, that’s obviously not great, but perhaps unsurprising. Basically the MP was implying that moms are hysterical and that mission conditions are A-OK, the Lord will protect, etc.
Yes, I think missions are too dangerous. The Church is pretty reckless with the lives of the young missionaries, and it amazes me that they still get away with it. There is definitely a moral hazard aspect to the culture; the same reason that, whenever advances are made in football helmet design, the result is that players will just hit harder and more aggressively, negating or subsuming any of the added safety features. When you send an 18-year-old (still several years shy of a fully-formed brain) to do dangerous work in a dangerous, unfamiliar area, tell him that he is anointed by God to preach the gospel, and also give him a brand new set of magic underwear that can supposedly stop bullets, then don’t expect him to always make good choices when it comes to personal safety. And, as mentioned earlier, the recklessness culture also trickles down from the leadership, not just the missionaries themselves.
Some anecdotal experiences:My brother-in-law served in rural northern Brazil in the 1990s. To this day he has intestinal parasites that continue to cause complications for his digestive system. He and his companions also faced numerous dangerous situations that his mission president (a native Brazilian) was largely indifferent to, and dismissed as “character building experiences”. One of their mission rules was that picture-taking was not allowed, which should have been a massive red flag in itself. Access to necessary medical care was regularly denied, and food was very limited. Reading between the lines, I’m guessing the MP resented having elitist white Americans in his mission, and took it upon himself to make sure they got an authentic experience of what daily life was like for the impoverished locals. When Church HQ caught wind of this MP’s recklessness, he was released early, but the damage had been done.
My wife served in a developed country with a high cost of living, but was not given an adequate budget for living expenses. Her and her companions starved, many suffered stress fractures, and more than a few had reproductive health issues induced by the malnutrition combined with excessive walking on cobblestone streets with insufficient footwear. The MP was a numbers guy who had experienced starvation as a young missionary, and considered it an important part of the experience, so he artificially induced hunger by withholding funds. And he was ambivalent to female-specific concerns. That MP later became a 70. And these days, my wife rolls her eyes every time the “feed the missionaries” sign-up sheet is passed around at church. She thinks today’s missionaries are spoiled and entitled because they never miss meals and almost never have to cook for themselves.
Another brother-in-law served in the Upper Midwest (mid-2000s), and was the victim of sexual assault at the hands of his companion and other missionaries in his district–at the time was dismissed as a “fraternity-style hazing stunt that went too far”. The MP was largely ignorant and/or tolerant of such behavior, but was too eager to send my brother-in-law home early for “complaining too much”. Rather than actually deal with the problem, the MP just wanted to get rid of the squeaky wheel and pretend it never happened. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law is still dealing with the effects of the trauma.
I didn’t go on a mission, and instead served in the military, which many would regard as a more dangerous choice for a young person. But the military provides extensive training on how to do your job (whatever it may be) safely, has a robust safety culture, provides medical care, a generous benefits package, and if all else fails, very generous life insurance. If you incur injuries or illnesses during your service with lifelong complications, you have access to lifelong medical care and/or disability payments. LDS missionaries do not have any of this. There is no equivalent of a VA for returned missionaries; if you get broken on your mission, you’re on your own to figure it out, because the Church will not help you.
I believe missionary work is more psychologically difficult now than in past generations
A few years ago, my retired boomer parents served a part-time senior mission, in which their primary task was to inspect the apartments of the young missionaries, for maintenance, cleanliness and safety. They often remarked that young missionaries these days are sloppy, and not well prepared for life, and can’t seem to figure out simple household maintenance tasks, like changing lightbulbs or plunging stuck toilets. Perhaps that is a valid concern in some quarters. But they furthermore complained that missionaries are getting sent home too frequently, because nowadays they are “too weak” for the demands of missionary work. What people like my parents don’t seem to get is that missionary work is more psychologically difficult now than in the past. Back in the 1960s when the Church was growing rapidly, most people knew nothing about Mormons, so when missionaries went tracting door-to-door, there was always a chance of meeting someone curious to know more. In the information age, pretty much everyone in the developed world knows at least something about the Mormons, whether positive or negative, and they have already made up their mind that it’s something that they don’t want to be a part of, long before any missionaries come knocking. A young missionary today, facing day after interminable day of tracting and rejection, will recognize the situation for what it really is (mind-numbing, unproductive busywork) and may decide that it wasn’t what they signed up for. That, and young people today are more empowered to speak up, or just leave, when they find themselves in an abusive or toxic situation.
I wonder to what extent missionaries returning today struggle with the effects of moral injuries (non-physical injuries that result from violating one’s conscience or values); for example, being required to arrogantly impose one’s belief systems on others, especially in unfamiliar countries and cultures, must take some kind of toll on a person. Or being obsessed with numbers/results at the expense of being a decent human being.
@wayfarer, yeah, it’s not a great situation. Tradition is strong. Missionaries have ridden bikes through chaotic traffic in this mission (and, honestly in a number of missions in this part of the world) for many decades. Most mission presidents these days seem to be called to the areas of the world that they themselves served as missionaries, so it’s probably difficult for them to see the problem since they survived their two year term riding a bike when they were young, so no biggie, right?
I don’t want to give the false impression it’s a bloodbath. My daughter is only aware of minor accidents (and many more close calls, yikes!!!) involving missionaries she’s met on her mission (and ugh, yes, she’s had a few minor spills herself–luckily very minor). Still, the risks are obvious, and there have been missionary deaths and serious accidents over the years, so it just seems like the Church should do everything in its power to protect the missionaries from a serious biking accident. I think the expense would truly be quite modest in this country, too, perhaps even cheaper than paying for the aftermath of a major accident!
My family and I have actually lived in this country for business for a few six month or so stints (which probably had something to do with my daughter being assigned to serve there), so I am quite familiar with the situation. The locals that I’ve worked with are generally more affluent, and the common thinking nowadays is that many families who can afford it simply don’t allow any family members to ride motorcycles, motor scooters, or bicycles. Ever. It’s just too risky (much riskier than the US).
If my daughter was doing a study abroad program or something like that over there, that would also be my guidance to her: public transportation and cars are fine, but absolutely no bikes, motorcycles, or scooters. I’d be more than willing to provide the funds for her to get around so that she didn’t need to resort to more unsafe forms of transportation. So, yeah, there’s this huge disconnect between how the Church as opposed to how I would prefer missionaries to get around. Unfortunately, most parents are completely oblivious to the risks since they have never visited this country or even this part of the world.
I think it’s unusual for a police officer to stop bicyclists like the one that stopped my daughter. This is pure speculation, but in my mind, what I imagine happened is that he saw two young, beautiful, well groomed females riding bikes through this traffic, and just thought about his own his daughters (the culture here is still pretty chauvinistic, so there is an emphasis on protecting females as opposed to males). He would probably never allow his own daughters to ride bicycles through the streets like this, so he felt compelled to say something to my daughter. I would absolutely love for this police officer to have a word with the mission president about bicycle safety. Perhaps you are right that I myself should have a word with the mission president about this, but like @hawkgrrrl said, I really, really, really doubt it would change anything other than flag my daughter as having a “difficult” father which might result in negative repercussions for her as well. As a result, it seems like the only 2 choices are for my daughter to ride a bike or to come home. My preference is for her to come home (I was outwardly neutral, but I never really wanted her to go in the first place), but I know she wants to stay–and, it really is her decision.
What I really think would cause change is for the mission president and his wife to be required to ride bikes for all of their local trips that are within 5-10 miles of the mission office just like young missionaries do. I’m pretty sure that after a few weeks of that, bikes would be summarily banned for good.
I just wanted to throw out there the fact that pedestrian deaths have skyrocketed since 2009. They are up a whopping 80% in the US. The cause is that vehicles are getting bigger and heavier as auto makers have shifted to SUVs, cross-overs, and trucks (and the trucks get higher and higher). Any vehicle/pedestrian accident is far more likely to be fatal nowadays. Also, we have an aging population that is also distracted by their phones.
I’m not sure the degree to which the pedestrian death rate has increased for non-US countries. I suppose it would depend on the degree to which each country has embraced heavier and higher up vehicles (lifted and higher vehicles strike higher and cause a fatality or serious injury much more frequently).
In my mission (Montreal), 1/2 of the mission we had a car and the other 1/2 of the mission when I was in Montreal we were taking buses, metro (subway), or walking. I wouldn’t have traded the ability to take public transportation for the world! One of the great blessings that my mission gave me was that it opened my eyes to the joys of a well-funded, highly efficient public transportation system. My exposure to public transportation and my desire to shun vehicles whenever possible stems in large part to the very positive experience I had in Montreal’s metro system. My wife thinks I’m crazy for trying to live a car-free lifestyle (not really possible where we live at the moment), but it still is the goal.
An addendum to my comment above: Yeah, maybe missions are too dangerous in the sense that exposing young Americans to good public transportation systems and alternative ways of getting around might result in returning missionaries questioning the primacy of car-centric American culture. I for one would welcome something in the US that looks more like what can be found in the Netherlands when it comes to biking.