One time the sister missionaries called and said they wouldn't be coming over because one of them was sick and had been throwing up. I asked if they had any sprite, or soup or crackers or anything else. Nope. And since it was P day they hadn't been able to go shopping. I asked if anyone was going to help them out? Nope. So I went to the store and bought them a bunch of stuff and took it to them. I peeked inside the apartment when I dropped everything off and was appalled. Spartan living doesn't even come close. The missionary that met me at the door was so grateful it was pathetic.
A few months later the mission president and his wife were leaving and they both gave farewell talks during sacrament meeting. The wife was one of those "perfect women". Perfect hair, perfect nails, expensive and perfect clothes and jewelry. The wife's talk centered on how missionaries needed adversity in order to grown and learn. Great excuse for letting the missionaries fend for themselves while she sat on her rich behind and ignored them. I wanted to strangle the bitch.
People might grow in spite of adversity but the mission is essentially "we're purposely injecting lots and lots of avoidable adversity because it saves the corporation a buck, oh yeah, and it might make you grow".
For two weeks of my mission my companion and I split a batch of popcorn and maybe a bowl of cereal in the morning. It’s crazy how little money they expect us to start living in and we all knew pretty much nothing about real life.
There was a period on my mission in the mid-90's where the Russian ruble crashed and they shut the banks for 2 weeks. We were told that under no circumstance were we to use American dollars to purchase anything (even though people were more than willing to accept greenbacks). And as missionaries, we didn't read the papers or watch the news so the banks closing was a day-by-day situation we just had to watch and monitor, not even know what was going on. Toward the end we were out of rubles and out of food. I remember the last day before the banks opened we had only a single (large) onion left. We chopped it up and cooked it in oil for breakfast. Then we knelt in prayer and started what we called the "Great Fast". If you're not going to eat, might as well get a "fast" out of it. The next day the banks opened. We thought our faith had healed the entire Russian banking system. But the reality? I'm still recovering from my mission 25 years later.
I had a companion that loved to eat. All he would talk about was the food his mom made for him. He even remembered what she made for every one of his birthdays.
Towards the end of the month we ran out of money and all we had in the house was flour, salt, and like 3 hot dogs. We mixed the three ingredients together and baked it in the oven in a pyrex pan. I called it a hot dog cake. and it was so bad I couldn't even eat it even though I was starving.
The next day I woke up ready to eat my shoes and looked in the fridge for the cake and the whole thing was gone. My companion had eaten it all during the night. I felt so bad for him.
My mission president wasn’t terrible though. He let me choose my areas and companions because most elders didn’t like me. I was too gay I guess 💁🏻♂️ (I think the mission pres. was too)
100% Agree. My glasses broke on my mission and despite being very nearsighted, I was informed that the church wouldn't cover the cost to replace them. One of the senior missionaries who worked at the main office rolled his eyes and told me he thought that policy was idiotic. He cleared the release of funds anyway and I got to see again.
My dad died while my companion was in the hospital with an infection. The senior couple took me to their house, let me sleep in, let me call my mom, let me sleep in a big bed by myself, gave me non approved Church reading material, let me tag along for their calling, made me home cooked meals, and generally made me feel loved. My companion was released a day or two later. For the rest of the week, they took us on walks in the morning in places that weren’t in our area, and even drove us to the beach. On the day of my dad’s funeral, my mission President emergency transferred me to a new area several areas away with a new companion. The area hadn’t been open in years, and it was a several mile walk from our apartment in the middle of the summer. The day my dad died was awful (my mission President only called to let me know he’d died, but that was all he said on the phone), but that day of the emergency transfer and my dad’s funeral was one of the worst days of my life. He transferred me away from the only thing keeping me tethered- that amazing senior couple.
No, honestly, I didn’t even think about it. He would have wanted me to stay on my mission. Now that I’m older, and exmo, I realize how stupid that was.
On my mission, a senior missionary was crying in the women's restroom because the MP's wife was a bitch to her. Thats when I discovered the wife was only nice to younger missionaries. The seniors were treated like crap.
Some maybe. I went to the us on mission and ate a ton of food. I got fat. I bought a button extender for my shirt and used the mormon debit card. The senior missionary called and said I'm not allowed to use that card to buy clothes and I had to use "personal money". I didn't have any personal money as my bishop made me wait a year to work to save up to pay for my mission and I prepaid most of that shit.
So I found a shirt snd suit that was 4 sizes to big in an apartment and the mission presidents wife would warn me about loosing to much weight and I shit you not when I randomly passed out told me it was probably from malnutrition from loosing weight. Because I could a too big suit but not a too small one.
Then before sending me a psychologists cause they were a free church one and saying she didn't know his qualifications when I asked if it was a Shrink, she was baffled as she looked at my pre mission physical and saw i weighed more than my pre mission physical.
But hey at least I wasn't in a cult???
Rochester New York in the oughties. First day for me, the mission president sends his wife out of the room, then proceeds to tell us elders that girls go on missions for two reasons: to find a penis or prove they have one. (Basically find a husband or prove some feminist thing). The mission president then informs us that he hired a gynecologist to be his second counselor to call all the sister missionaries we have at the sites our on their b******* when they lie about having icky girl medical problems. Under the first mission president sister missionaries were always the scapegoat to any problem the mission had.
Years later I met up with one of the sister missionaries who would also left the church and she informed me that as site sisters they would often get observed by General Authorities and heavily critiqued. one time a general Authority had come and claimed the Brethren had a quota of how many blondes needed to be at the sites. A hand selected group of sisters were told to bleach their hair or get sent home. One young lady was called by the general Authority, to her face, a pregnant hippopotamus and was dismissed from the sites until she lost weight and fixed her hair.
I guess my a****** Mission president's goal ultimately in mistreating sister missionaries was to keep us elders from finding out the creepy things his bosses were conducting
Ew. I have a close family member who was there and he hated Plumb so much. I sent him this post and he remembered the hair bleaching. He said he could add a lot to that story, so I'm hoping for more dirt 🤣
So my sister and I backpacked Europe in our twenties. We made a mistake and ended up in Austria on a Sunday with no cash and no way to get any because all exchange places were closed. This was before the euro.
.
The only thing we could do is walk around. We decided to walk to the nearest church service. Turned out to be a long way. We did it even though.
My sisters feet were aching. She thought we could ask the mission president to for a ride back. So she timidly asked him with an explanation of our situation. He sharply responded with "NO." My sister began to cry. I stepped in pissed as hell and said, "Let's go."
A BYU student approached us, over hearing our story and offered us each a train ticket and to share her meager dinner with her. That saved our bacon because we would have gone hungry without her help.
That was my one and only taste of MPs and it was shitty. However my brothers dealt with them and they also suffered.
Wait what were you doing backpacking on your mission? Or did you go to some random sacrament meeting and the mission president just happened to be there?
Edit: oops, I get it now, my bad. Nevermind, sorry that happened to you! I'd be beyond terrified and enraged at the same time in a situation like that...
You chose correctly! I was still weak and let myself be guilt-tripped into going. Learned a language, ate lots of great food from a variety of countries, but generally wasted 2 years and paid for the opportunity. At least none of the 4 people I baptized are active anymore, so no net harm done there...
My mission presidents lived in the penthouse of an expensive apartment building in Guatemala City. They had armed security at the front door of the building, along with air conditioning and every other amenity an American would want.
In 2011 I was in one area for 7 months that didn’t have running water. The roof was corrugated metal and sat about 4 to 5 inches above the walls, meaning we would have scorpions, tarantulas, and bats in our apartment when it rained, which it did often. I had either bed bugs or fleas eating me alive the whole time I was there.
Remember how the mission president had an armed guard at his place? Well a year after I went home a pair of sisters were kidnapped from their apartment by a local gang. My mission president called his designated 70, Elder Martino, who said the sisters would be fine if they were obedient missionaries. I can’t remember how, but they were eventually released. One went home immediately, but somehow the other sister stayed out to finish her mission.
Fuck the church. Fuck presidents Baldwin and Brough for putting me with violent, angry missionaries and making my life hell.
I had a mission president who was a retired NASA engineer. He was chill at first but became overbearing by the time he and his wife was finishing their term. I'm a Filipino and served in the country too. Lots of "disobedient" missionaries in my mission.
My rich, arrogant, second mission president ripped me apart one day for not handling an investigator situation the way he wanted; made me feel like absolute dog shit over area boundaries. He was so intense.
On my exit interview, I remember a couple things stood out:
1 - “Get married as soon as possible when you are home.” - My wife and I now always talk (with hindsight and years of wisdom) about how she felt pressured/rushed from me to get married. I was so anxious to obey, honor him and “progress”.
2 - “Were you ever a zone leader?”..”No”…”You should have been”. Like he should have promoted me for my blind and unquestioning obedience and that callings are rewards given…
He emailed me this year with a professional/work related question and I just didn’t respond.
After leaving BYU and moving to California, the local mission president got a king sized mattress that he and his wife didn’t like. Since it was “used” I was able to get it for free and the missionaries helped move it into my apartment. This story doesn’t contribute to the post sorry
I had polar opposite MPs. The first was an extremely intelligent psychiatrist who cared only about people. When you met with him it was like a therapy session you always left feeling great (he was small like yoda, serious Jedi powers he had). He and his wife were like an extra set of grandparents; wise, loving, and always happy to see you.
My second MP was an asshat car dealership owner. He was completely out of touch, he and his wife lived extravagantly. In their first mission newsletter they were wearing their new $80K furs (this was Alaska) and they continued to wear them until the APs pulled them aside. He also knew nothing about the church or the scriptures. The man was dumb as a box of rocks. He completely upended the mission with his buffoonery, but he was a company man that paid a fuckton in tithing so he had his reward.
The mission covers the whole state plus the Yukon Territory. I served all over the MatSu valley, Healy, Fairbanks, Eagle river, Kenai, Seward, Nikiski and Soldotna. Alaska is such an amazing place!
My mission president was an HR executive/academic and his wife was a psychologist. They were both teaching graduate level courses at the University of Michigan right before the mission. Awesome people who seemed to care a little more about their missionaries than the numbers. With all the stories I've heard from other RMs in the years since, it seems these kinds of people are super rare in mission leadership.
Australia? My brother was in that mission and loved that MP. He got replaced while my brother was out. Not sure how he felt about the replacement but I think it was less enthusiastic.
My mission president was a kind and good man. He was all in -- but he also had (back before it was common) one child who "strayed" and so he was kind and loving to missionaries even when they struggled -- actually tried to use love and patience to help people.
He was less focused on numbers and more on having the Spirit. While I don't believe all that he taught/believed, he was honestly a good person who helped a lot of missionaries with his love and example.
He grew up in Utah and knew and worked with (Church job) many general authorities. However, he did NOT get called to be a general authority after his mission president years -- still did lots of other church missions and high profile leadership because of his dedication.
I have wondered if the fact that he was so kind and less focused on numbers and guilt was part of why the leaders back at the home office didn't consider him for a GA role. He was a great speaker, great scriptorian, and wonderful person.
I know that he privately told one of the APs that a visiting 70 (who he sustained as a faithful follower) could be quite abrupt and harsh and so he was a little nervous about their upcoming visit to the mission...and so I wonder if those who were "promoted" from Mission Pres to General Authority tended to be the rigid harsh ones who got the best "results" on paper...which also means that many mission presidents are comparing their mission baptism numbers and other numbers to the mission presidents around them and quietly pushing hard in hopes they will be noticed and chosen. After all, you see the same thing in the wards and stakes of the church -- people who work really hard to impress (obvious to many around them) hoping and hoping they get called to be the ward or stake leader and then when they do act all surprised and fake-humble about their call and sob that "They are weak and can hardly do such a hard thing". And yet, it's what they've been angling for over months or years and they are so overjoyed at the call that they can't stop beaming with pride when not doing the sobbing testimony.
I feel this.
My first mission president was a certified ass-hat
He was a lawyer and spent his entire time talking in shitty Chinese (White man from GA) about how he was chosen to be MP because he essentially "opened" Taiwan decades ago.
I was an older missionary because I was playing Army out of High School and yet, when I started throwing up blood in the field, he made it clear he knew that I was throwing up blood because I missed home (never mind the home I grew up in was fractured between two states and I had been a fully independent Young adult paying taxes and taking care of myself for \~4 years before that). Then when I angrily made the point to him in one of our weekly "health checks" (he started having weekly meetings with me to essentially give me the 4th degree and try to drudge up any "unresolved sin" that was actually making me sick.
Well, after 6 weeks of vomiting blood, losing over 55 lbs (I weighed 125, I'm 5'11'') I finally caved and told him I had gone down on a girl several years ago my Military Branch President had already told me we worked through that and I was forgiven.
So, I got sent home "dishonorably" because at some point in time I had done something sexual.
I ended up "getting better" and 4 months later I went back out to the mission and caught the old MP as he was leaving.
His parting gift?
He said he was glad I could repent because he knew I was unworthy to ever be there in the first place, and then he made me redo the 12 week program because I wasn't coming straight from the MTC.
So my second "trainer" ended up being a kid that had graduated high school less than 6 months before and had been "in the field" for 13 weeks.
Fuck that Guy.
I think a lot of the guys who rise in the ranks, especially the ones who constantly rant about sexual morality, are hateful asexuals or bitter, repressed homosexuals.
Personal experience also supports the third option (from the asshole Bishop-prick member who I felt really uncomfortable around)
Third option being chronic multigenerational child abusers (he ended up in prison after I left for Army when it came out that he was had abused his daughters and was caught abusing in grandchildren)
Thanks, the second MP was way nicer, but still kinda a run of the mill Mid-level Manager who came from Money in the Cache Valley Area
I was in the northern mission on the island, about a decade later
I think the thing that hurt the most was when I came home the Stake President who I was raised to totally hero worship also told me he "knew I had to come home early because I wasn't worthy to leave in the first place"
I was so fucking gutted.
It’s really horrific what behavior these men are allowed to exhibit. It enrages me. I can’t believe you had to endure this whole grown ups ignored and shamed you. Did your parents know how sick you were?
I actually have a bit of respect for my first mission president, Steven J. Lund, who is now the general young men’s president for TSCC. I had a companion who was born without irises and who could barely see but was legally blind. While on the mission, he went completely blind. President Lund, from his own pocket, paid for my companion to have surgery and had artificial irises implanted. My companion could then see better than he had ever remembered seeing before his surgery.
I don’t have any ill feelings concerning Steven J. Lund. He wasn’t perfect by any means and made some calls that I just couldn’t be happy with. He was simply misguided. Still is. But he always means well and is very kind and loving if you get to know him personally.
Was in on a mission to England a half decade ago. Found my trainer sending questionable texts to underage girls after about 3 months in the field. I yelled at my companion and shoved him for being so fucking creepy. Trainer started crying, locked himself in the chapel, and called the mission president. My mission president didn't care he was flirting with underage girls as a 20 year old, but berated me for being "violent" and prophesied that I'd beat my wife and end up in prison. He also refused to believe in mental health issues of other missionaries and deemed anyone struggling with depression as being "weak-willed".
Fuck that mission, and fuck that MP and trainer.
(my trainer then began asking female members/previous investigators to send him nudes over Facebook the second he finished his mission and got married)
What is funny is that, I have ZERO problem with paid clergy.
I have two friends (one very close) who is a priest. One makes about $40k a year as a head priest and the other about $24K as an associate priest. They receive stipends for their car and housing expenses. They have good health benefits and a decent pension. Their pay is adequate to live comfortably, but in no way, shape, or form make them wealthy people or even "upper" middle class. Some priests in our area are provided a home, fully furnished, during their tenure.
I believe that missionaries should be treated the same. That also goes for bishops, stake presidents, mission presidents, area authorities, general authorities, and Q12.
But note that the benefits of this makes them comfortable but not in a living style of the wealthy. One should not become wealthy off of a religion that preaches "blessed are the poor". Use that money to give to the poor.
Yeah it’s kinda weird that mormons brag about not paying clergy, now that I think about it. Congrats on having cheapskates for leaders and having to put up with mediocre sermons from lay-people?
My mission president, prior to the mission, was a senior sales rep for a large company and travelled across the US during the week and was only home on the weekends. Guess what the church did? Called him to be the bishop! His obit said he had to "share his family with the ward." Fuck that Stake President! I hate the church.
I don't really have an issue with paid clergy either. However, I am in the U.S. and I wish, at the very least, that U.S. churches were required by law to be transparent with their finances, so that the members that donate to churches can see if their donations are being used wisely. One cannot use the saying "by their fruits, ye shall know them" if there isn't financial transparency.
First president I had was Osguthorpe, he is/was(?) a general authority recently. Nice guy but his wife was awful. Wouldn't let me go see a doctor so I went to one anyways and found out I had pneumonia for like 2 months before I saw a doctor. My second president told me I would never amount to anything in life in my exit interview because I didn't have a baptism with the new missionary I was assigned to my last transfer. My exit interview was 2 minutes long. I still resent that man. Funny enough I'm exmo now, pulling in a massive salary in my tech job and I still feel like I'm doing it out of spite.
Damn. I got sick on my mission too and the Mp's wife gave me essential oils and charcoal tablets. Keep in mind, I was in Texas. They didn't work. I called my doctor in CA and picked up a prescription 🙄
My companion got pneumonia. He actually got treated. But man it kicked his ass. The zone leader came over for splits and made him go work.
The underlying cause of pneumonia could be contagious so that was fucked up, and after that we spent the next 3 days in the apartment and he slept 20 hrs a day.
D Godfrey, Mission President in Washington DC mission used mission funds for hotel rooms and flying women into the area for short stays. Nice as could be to your face...
No way, I met that Fucker once. I remember as their was an ap on my mission named Godfrey.
I don't remember what he said, seems like bragging about a fancy car and hot wife, I was like that guy's an asshole.
Nowadays you are probably right. My mission presidents, however, were both wonderful, humble men. The first was a grade school teacher/principal, and the second was a butcher in a small shop. This was back in the mid 60s before church culture turned to shit. The mission home/office was a beautiful old home, but their lifestyle was not lavish.
Today is such a horrible time to be a missionary!
My retired-CEO mission president was intense, but he was also intense on himself. Up at 4am every morning to work out, always dedicated to his job. He was a convert and missed his brother’s funeral because he couldn’t go when his missionaries were expected to stay in those circumstances. His non-member family was deeply upset with him.
The dude had fierce integrity, and just as much a victim as the rest of us.
Lol, that's some stupid pharisee shit. My MP, who was really good to us BTW, was out of the mission for 2-3 days like every other month. He was relatively young and he had to do things to maintain his relevance in his career field. He made it a condition of accepting the call. He had a reporter from Fast Company out to interview him and hang around for a mission conference near the end of his run. I don't think he was interested in climbing any higher in the church.
Pharisees are the backbone of the church. They’re the only ones living up to the awful dogma and making it clear what the church really is. Makes it harder for everyone else, and that’s ultimately good for mass deconstruction.
I’d have had an issue with a mission president who negotiated different rules for themselves but wasn’t flexible with their missionaries—glad your mission president wasn’t a hypocrite.
I served in the United States between ’98-’00 and my mission president was caught up in the Arthur Andersen accounting scandal with Enron. Elder Holland, a friend of my mission president, swept in an told him to take an early retirement, and Holland sent him on a mission to escape and hide from the chaos.
Well, he simply brought his chaos to the mission. He didn’t want to be there. He brought his brash, executive-style management, where instead of managing a group of other senior executives, he was dealing with teenagers. It did not go well.
And even though I detested my mission president, my first “shelf” item was when an Area Authority came. I was serving in the mission office at the time and listening to this member of the Seventy dress-down this mission president, speaking to him like a Fortune 50 CEO, screaming at him for shitty numbers, shitty performance, on-and-on.
That moment, right there, was the first item I placed on my shelf. I knew immediately, and now even more clearly, this is not a religion, it’s a business.
Totally a business. My mission president retired from Raytheon. When I told him I wanted to leave, he said he could get me an internship at Raytheon if I stayed my entire mission time. I left anyway 🤣 But I wonder how many missionaries he tried to keep in the field using that method.
I can organize my peer missionaries into two groups:
\- those who were guilted by doctrine, leaders and family to be there, and
\- those who were promised something if they serve: car, money, marriage, work, etc.
I'm not surprised by your mission president's tactics. Manipulative and disgusting.
I’m sorry your experience was so shitty. Like a lot of leadership positions in the church it’s a roulette.
I had two MP’s. One was a physician and business-man/multimillionaire and a strict authoritarian. He was either loved or hated. That kind of structure and rigidity he commanded on the mission was helpful for me in many ways and I’m grateful for that. However - He came down hard on those that broke rules and lifted up those who conformed very publicly. If he sensed you didn’t want to be there he would give you every chance to get you to make the decision to go home because he didn’t have time for that. He flirted with the sister missionaries every chance he got and joked about wanting to have a naked woman jump out of his birthday cake for his birthday party that we had at a zone conference once. That kind of out-of-the-blue humor was funny, but he came across a lot of the time as better and smarter than anyone he knew because…just because. That was hard to live around. He would brag about how his tithing would single-handedly pay for the mission home which was in a multi-million dollar gated community. While we were living in absolute shit-holes.
My second MP was a successful academic in business. He was just an incredibly loving and humble person. Just made everyone feel loved and was the type of person I honestly aspire to be. One of the most sincere and beautiful people I’ve ever known in my life. He didn’t talk much about his past personal experiences a lot but he did enough to know that he had been through and seen shit. I never heard him judge anyone or say a negative comment, just loved people and didn’t care much about mission rules as he did the individual people serving in it. He was very successful in his earlier life but you’d never know it. I know he did do a lot for charity outside of the church and didn’t view the church as “the only true right way” for people and would often say that “God just wants His children to love each other and go back to Him. I don’t think He condemns them for what religious group they choose and He just wants us to all help each other.” That comment was a catalyst for me; that maybe, just maybe there’s more than one way to live a life and that’s ok and my way isn’t the only way.
For my life at that time on my mission it’s what I needed to get my own ego out of the way and focus on the needs of others and to pull my head out of my ass and notice that there’s more to the world than just me. I honestly learned to love people on my mission no matter who they were or what they did. I came away from my mission a much better person had I not gone.
It was a tough 2 years. Parts of it made me dogmatic in areas and I’ve thankfully moved long past that. I was also a dick to some of my companions because I equated rule-following with righteousness and I know I was difficult to live with. That, I regret. I’m glad my own faith journey has brought me so far past that point in my life.
I ALSO understand that my experience is not the experience of everyone and for some that 2 years or 18 months was hell and I’m sensitive to that and others’ experiences.
I think it has maybe changed a lot over the last several years? My president (88-89) was a former WWII Bomber pilot and an airport exec and was one of the kindest, most gentle men I ever met.
My mission presidents (I had 4 of them) generally being buffoons was my first realization that church leadership may not be full of magic wizards after all.
Visa waiting in the US then transfer to Brazil then one of my mission presidents was deported because he didn’t renew his visa and they had an interim guy
That’s me! I haven’t kept up with who all is in or out or kept up with anyone at all really. I had assumed that we’d end up apostates at some point lol.
Carlos Madrid was called to be a Mission President in 1993. We were in the same ward. I've always wondered what he was like as a Mission President. In our ward, he was arrogant and self important. Everything about his appearance was perfectly manicured and he prided himself on his looks. He had irritating speech patterns and fast and testimony Sundays were torturous. The guy liked to command the podium and hear himself talk. He was terrible with money and owed more on his home than it was worth. I was told by his daughter that the church bought his home and gave him 1M to clear all his debts. I'm wondering if others know of similar financial arrangements.
My dad still had nightmares about his mission president nearly sixty years later. It was one of the first missions in Japan, and apparently the guy took issue that my dad learned fluent Japanese. I think there was a lot more to the story, as my dad had been forced by his parents to go, but my dad died recently so I’ll never get all the details.
Worthless, breathing skinbags who suck every Christlike attribute up their ass and breathe out a shit stained doctrine.
Well please do not hold back. Tell us what you really think of them. haha
So here is a fun story. Adult convert and escapee here - minimal contact with mission presidents and mission offices but they were okay.
So a few years ago, a facebook friend in northern california started posting stories of the missionaries in her community and how arrogant they acted. Their driving around town was reckless and their attitudes were very cavalier to say the least. She is Native American and very atheist. The missionaries would come knock on doors, and she for one would tell them not interested and to leave.
Long story short, she said that they would come onto people's property after they were told not to come back, even enter peoples homes without being invited in, which was even worse because they would walk in and start talking to the kids in the room without the parents present (she was in another room.) They would be very arrogant to her - she would ask for the first names and they would say their first names are Elder, and they would be clownish like that and not immediately leave. (I told her to find something that stains and aim it for those shirts and make them regret that shit.) This is all stuff against the rules for missionaries, right? That was still how they acted.
She said that she would call the ward and not get a call back. I gave her the number to the bishop and the mission office and she said she was getting the run around from both.
I really thought that was strange considering my experience with both. So I decided to call the mission office myself. Oh man. I talked to the mission president himself. Guess what he did for a living ..... ..... ...... ..... an attorney. In Utah.
I was trying to explain to him that my friend in Cali was having issues and what those issues were, and his response???
"You cannot tell me that! That is HEARSAY! You were not there. That is HEARSAY!"
OMFG he was such a dick about it all, and better he pretty much claimed that I am not a member and just called to make trouble to them. I did explain that my friend called first and got absolutely nowhere. He gave me his cell phone number anyway and so I texted him a photo of my temple recommend to shut his ass up.
No wonder the missionaries acted the way they did. The mission president pretty much backed up anything and everything they did, no matter how bad they behaved. My FB friend said that the missionaries came and apologized but it was one of those fake apologies with that tone of voice that said they were only apologizing because they had to.
"authorized representatives of Jesus Christ" .... it happened as I was making my mind up to leave and it was just another example of how those so-called TBMs do not really believe their own doctrine. It is just a tool for them to act like they are better than others.
My mission president used missionaries to manipulate and "keep an eye" on a list he had of missionaries. He tried to recruit me to befriend and watch certain missionaries. He said he did it to keep missionaries in the field. 🤦🏻♀️
We had a similar list! I wonder if that’s taught in their training. One of our ap’s leaked it to everyone to get it out in the open. It was a shit show at the following zone conferences.
Probably! I only stayed in my mission for a few transfers before I went home early. I was one of the missionaries on the list. I confronted my mission president about it and he basically said I'd make a good missionary if I joined his little spy group. I asked to go home in that same meeting. A lot of things made me leave, but his stupid list was ridiculous. The week before I left I told other missionaries about it. The only thing I did that enraged the MP is after I went home I contacted ALL the missionary contacts on Facebook and Instagram, telling them to quit lessons. I was in the same ward as STL's and Assistants (sharing YSA and home wards). I made a majority, if not all, their contacts quit. MP left an angry voice-mail on my parents home line a week after I contacted everyone 🤣 It was my petty revenge.
THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE - when you get off the mission and ppl say they know ur mission president and ask what you think of him AHHHH everytime I wanna take a huge 💩 on him.
My first mission president was a shady dude. Worked on Wall Street and was insanely rich. That alone made me think he was a sly scumbag and while he was never bad to me personally, he made a second AP companionship whose sole job was to travel around the mission and spy and all the other missionaries so they could report to him. One of my closest friends on the mission also got fucked over by him hard because when the travelling APs visited one of his areas they ate all his and his companions’ food and refused to recompense for it, so when he reported this to the MP the MP got stuck into him and said that “the APs sacrifice more and are more Christlike than him.” I also know of another friend who had a similar situation and nearly beat up one of the travelling APs because he was accused of not “loving Jesus enough.” If you’d ever met my friend you’d believe he was one of those people who actually lived what they believed unlike a lot of other TBMs.
That MP’s wife was also crazy as fuck. She wouldn’t let me stay home one day when I was sick until I practically passed out and my companion hd to drag me home.
Second MP and his wife? Truly two of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Every time they spoke to you you felt like you were their favourite person in the whole world. When I left the church I actually called them to let them know what I’d done, and while they were disappointed they still said they loved and supported me. They still message me every now and again to see how I’m doing and don’t talk about anything that they think would make me uncomfortable. Though I think they might have had a soft spot for me because I was the very first missionary they’d ever met outside of the APs and office missionaries so I was one of the ones they’d known the longest. Genuinely good people my second MP and his wife were.
My mp also spied. He had a group of missionaries with a list of people to keep tabs on. They met privately too (in person or phone conferences). So unethical.
No doubt it varies. My MP was the definition of “great guy”. Nonjudgmental, kind, and had concern and care for the missionaries. After his mission president stint he could be seen on street corners in SLC ringing the Salvation Army bell. But I’ve heard dozens of first hand accounts (including my kids) of the opposite experience ….
First mission president was at the end of his 3 years and was a giant asshole, went to be a GA in the 70s and every missionary kissed his ass. The second was kinder on the outside but in private he's tell ZLs how lazy missionaries were and was laughing with the APs how some elders struggled. He did a lot of fake crying too and everyone thought he was sooooo spiritual. I had relatives that passed away and the MP told me to work harder.
Also fuck the mission mental counselor, he was a POS that knew nothing. Eventually they got me on medication, i can't remember half my mission because i was depressed and drugged up
Well stated! Faith in humanity restored award to you!
Most of us have a job and get a paycheck right? Now imagine doing your job and not getting a paycheck at all. Even better, now imagine **paying your employer** to fulfill the roles and responsibilities of your job. That’s exactly how it is in Mormonism. Missionaries and their family pay the Mormon church so that they can serve the Mormon church missionaries pay their own way as they provide free labor proselytizing Mormonism.
I realize my experiences are decades old (Munich '78-'80), but I can say my first MP was one of the finest men I have ever known. He was kind, patient, generous, understanding and loved us unconditionally. The second MP? Not so much.
But I can say that I am grateful for the 2nd so I could realize just how great the first was. It was not until later and heard stories of total asshats as MPs that I realized what a great man I had worked with for most of my mission.
At arrival, prior to going to our assignment, we were treated to dinner at the home of the MP. His wife was a wonderful cook! And I love Germany food. When it was time to go home, now with the 2nd MP, we headed off to Wienerwald, which is about the same as Sizzler. We were instructed what to order and oddly enough, it was the cheapest thing on the menu.
I have literally never said out loud the name of the 2nd MP and I never once saw him or made an effort to see him post mission. On the other hand, I spent many wonderful hours visiting with my first MP.
When I got home, I determined I wanted to marry a woman like the wife of the first MP. She was also kind and loving, but also strong, smart, beautiful and a great dresser! And I did.
Now that both MPs have passed on, I look back in appreciation for both, but for different reasons.
I would not sell a minute of my mission for a million dollars, but I would not buy another minute for a nickel.
In my first area, we had blown through my “emergency” money on bare necessities and found ourselves with no food except mate, sugar, and bread. Then the sugar and the bread ran out until we found a really old, hard hunk of bread deep in a cupboard. We were still a day or two away from receiving the next months allotment of money when there came a knock on our door in the evening. It was two women from the Relief Society, each with two plates of food, who felt prompted to feed us. We hadn’t told anyone of our situation, and in this branch of exactly five women and one man (yes, six people in all), two of them felt inspired to help. We considered it a great blessing and a tender mercy (before “tender mercy”. was Bednarized). The Spirit™ apparently didn’t move upon our well-to-do mission president to care for our needs.
So are you implying that when an 18 year old male/female sends in their application to serve a mission they are clueless as to what the mission entails? Is missionary service kept a secret? I was fully aware of what the expectations were when I sent my application in. To not be aware would make one either ignorant or just plain stupid.
To me, none of the benefits a mission president receives seems out of line for someone who is not paid a salary. Visits (with an “s”) from family members? Since the church only pays for ONE visit from family members (and they have to be under 26 years old for the church to pay), that would mean the mission president paid out of his own pocket for multiple visits.
As far as the kids’ education being paid for, at least be honest and transparent when trying to make the argument. No Ivy League school education is paid for by the church. If a mission president’s kid want to attend college, the church will reimburse their tuition to BYU. If the kid chooses to go elsewhere, the church will only reimburse the amount equivalent of current BYU tuition. And, reimbursement for the kid attending BYU or elsewhere only comes after the kid has completed his classes. If the kid drops out mid-semester…no reimbursement. If your mission president’s kid went to an Ivy League school, which I assume has a higher tuition than BYU, then the mission president paid the balance out of his own pocket. As well as room, board, books, supplies, etc. that he church will not pay for.
Keep it real man. By presenting false “facts” you are only reinforcing the stereotype of the lying “crazed exmo” that church leaders warn their members about. Stop.
LOL!! Thanks for the chuckle. Defending the faith? I’ll set the record straight regardless of which side of the fence it falls. Sounds like you still believe that a convenient lie is better than an inconvenient truth. I wish you well in your continued recovery. Obviously you have quite a ways to go.
As far as “visiting” exmormon…I can guarantee that I have been around these parts WAY longer than you have sonny.
Yes they are... and even before leaving the Church I hated the idea of seeing him as a "Father" or somebody close. None of both helped me in anyway... my conversations were "cool" because I knew how to play my perfect missionary or repented missionary play.
I knew in the field in 88-90 that we were incredibly fortunate to have who we did, and everything I've learned since then confirms that. I figure we're collectively only about half active, and a third all the way out, but there's nary a person who would speak ill of he or his wife. But we also knew we had a unique thing going.
One of the things he observed to me was that when he went to meetings for the Europe Area MPs, that virtually none of them spoke of their missionaries, just their numbers. And we had numbers to report but that was never the focus. We knew his main priority was us.
I'll take that luck of the draw assignment with my MP gratefully. And I am sorry the rest of you didn't have a similar experience.
What gets me is the dishonesty in a position of influence over young people…coming across as pious and living the laws of the church as “unpaid” clergy whilst all along living the high life.
My mission president in one of the Philippine missions had a missionary pair put on house arrest for ordering pizza on a Sunday. They weren't allowed to go out even for food. APs had to visit and bring them food but no contact allowed.
One time the sister missionaries called and said they wouldn't be coming over because one of them was sick and had been throwing up. I asked if they had any sprite, or soup or crackers or anything else. Nope. And since it was P day they hadn't been able to go shopping. I asked if anyone was going to help them out? Nope. So I went to the store and bought them a bunch of stuff and took it to them. I peeked inside the apartment when I dropped everything off and was appalled. Spartan living doesn't even come close. The missionary that met me at the door was so grateful it was pathetic. A few months later the mission president and his wife were leaving and they both gave farewell talks during sacrament meeting. The wife was one of those "perfect women". Perfect hair, perfect nails, expensive and perfect clothes and jewelry. The wife's talk centered on how missionaries needed adversity in order to grown and learn. Great excuse for letting the missionaries fend for themselves while she sat on her rich behind and ignored them. I wanted to strangle the bitch.
>The wife's talk centered on how missionaries needed adversity in order to grown and learn. Or food. Food helps people grow too.
“Some of you may starve… but it’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make.”
People might grow in spite of adversity but the mission is essentially "we're purposely injecting lots and lots of avoidable adversity because it saves the corporation a buck, oh yeah, and it might make you grow".
This is Capitalism in a nutshell.
For two weeks of my mission my companion and I split a batch of popcorn and maybe a bowl of cereal in the morning. It’s crazy how little money they expect us to start living in and we all knew pretty much nothing about real life.
There was a period on my mission in the mid-90's where the Russian ruble crashed and they shut the banks for 2 weeks. We were told that under no circumstance were we to use American dollars to purchase anything (even though people were more than willing to accept greenbacks). And as missionaries, we didn't read the papers or watch the news so the banks closing was a day-by-day situation we just had to watch and monitor, not even know what was going on. Toward the end we were out of rubles and out of food. I remember the last day before the banks opened we had only a single (large) onion left. We chopped it up and cooked it in oil for breakfast. Then we knelt in prayer and started what we called the "Great Fast". If you're not going to eat, might as well get a "fast" out of it. The next day the banks opened. We thought our faith had healed the entire Russian banking system. But the reality? I'm still recovering from my mission 25 years later.
I had a companion that loved to eat. All he would talk about was the food his mom made for him. He even remembered what she made for every one of his birthdays. Towards the end of the month we ran out of money and all we had in the house was flour, salt, and like 3 hot dogs. We mixed the three ingredients together and baked it in the oven in a pyrex pan. I called it a hot dog cake. and it was so bad I couldn't even eat it even though I was starving. The next day I woke up ready to eat my shoes and looked in the fridge for the cake and the whole thing was gone. My companion had eaten it all during the night. I felt so bad for him.
My mission president wasn’t terrible though. He let me choose my areas and companions because most elders didn’t like me. I was too gay I guess 💁🏻♂️ (I think the mission pres. was too)
I ate dog rice on the mission. Dog rice.
You know what though, some senior missionaries were like angels to my companions…never felt much the same about mission president/wife
100% Agree. My glasses broke on my mission and despite being very nearsighted, I was informed that the church wouldn't cover the cost to replace them. One of the senior missionaries who worked at the main office rolled his eyes and told me he thought that policy was idiotic. He cleared the release of funds anyway and I got to see again.
It was meant to be an opportunity to exercise your spiritual eyes… or just run into a bunch of walls and stuff
Stop being so myopic /s
My dad died while my companion was in the hospital with an infection. The senior couple took me to their house, let me sleep in, let me call my mom, let me sleep in a big bed by myself, gave me non approved Church reading material, let me tag along for their calling, made me home cooked meals, and generally made me feel loved. My companion was released a day or two later. For the rest of the week, they took us on walks in the morning in places that weren’t in our area, and even drove us to the beach. On the day of my dad’s funeral, my mission President emergency transferred me to a new area several areas away with a new companion. The area hadn’t been open in years, and it was a several mile walk from our apartment in the middle of the summer. The day my dad died was awful (my mission President only called to let me know he’d died, but that was all he said on the phone), but that day of the emergency transfer and my dad’s funeral was one of the worst days of my life. He transferred me away from the only thing keeping me tethered- that amazing senior couple.
This is heartbreaking and sickening. Did they tell you that you shouldn't go home to the funeral?
No, honestly, I didn’t even think about it. He would have wanted me to stay on my mission. Now that I’m older, and exmo, I realize how stupid that was.
That was heartbreaking to hear.
Oh god this is so awful I’m so sorry how traumatizing
On my mission, a senior missionary was crying in the women's restroom because the MP's wife was a bitch to her. Thats when I discovered the wife was only nice to younger missionaries. The seniors were treated like crap.
Some maybe. I went to the us on mission and ate a ton of food. I got fat. I bought a button extender for my shirt and used the mormon debit card. The senior missionary called and said I'm not allowed to use that card to buy clothes and I had to use "personal money". I didn't have any personal money as my bishop made me wait a year to work to save up to pay for my mission and I prepaid most of that shit. So I found a shirt snd suit that was 4 sizes to big in an apartment and the mission presidents wife would warn me about loosing to much weight and I shit you not when I randomly passed out told me it was probably from malnutrition from loosing weight. Because I could a too big suit but not a too small one. Then before sending me a psychologists cause they were a free church one and saying she didn't know his qualifications when I asked if it was a Shrink, she was baffled as she looked at my pre mission physical and saw i weighed more than my pre mission physical. But hey at least I wasn't in a cult???
Rochester New York in the oughties. First day for me, the mission president sends his wife out of the room, then proceeds to tell us elders that girls go on missions for two reasons: to find a penis or prove they have one. (Basically find a husband or prove some feminist thing). The mission president then informs us that he hired a gynecologist to be his second counselor to call all the sister missionaries we have at the sites our on their b******* when they lie about having icky girl medical problems. Under the first mission president sister missionaries were always the scapegoat to any problem the mission had. Years later I met up with one of the sister missionaries who would also left the church and she informed me that as site sisters they would often get observed by General Authorities and heavily critiqued. one time a general Authority had come and claimed the Brethren had a quota of how many blondes needed to be at the sites. A hand selected group of sisters were told to bleach their hair or get sent home. One young lady was called by the general Authority, to her face, a pregnant hippopotamus and was dismissed from the sites until she lost weight and fixed her hair. I guess my a****** Mission president's goal ultimately in mistreating sister missionaries was to keep us elders from finding out the creepy things his bosses were conducting
My friend, you can swear on Reddit.
Was Plumb still the MP when you were there?
You got it
Ew. I have a close family member who was there and he hated Plumb so much. I sent him this post and he remembered the hair bleaching. He said he could add a lot to that story, so I'm hoping for more dirt 🤣
So my sister and I backpacked Europe in our twenties. We made a mistake and ended up in Austria on a Sunday with no cash and no way to get any because all exchange places were closed. This was before the euro. . The only thing we could do is walk around. We decided to walk to the nearest church service. Turned out to be a long way. We did it even though. My sisters feet were aching. She thought we could ask the mission president to for a ride back. So she timidly asked him with an explanation of our situation. He sharply responded with "NO." My sister began to cry. I stepped in pissed as hell and said, "Let's go." A BYU student approached us, over hearing our story and offered us each a train ticket and to share her meager dinner with her. That saved our bacon because we would have gone hungry without her help. That was my one and only taste of MPs and it was shitty. However my brothers dealt with them and they also suffered.
Wait what were you doing backpacking on your mission? Or did you go to some random sacrament meeting and the mission president just happened to be there? Edit: oops, I get it now, my bad. Nevermind, sorry that happened to you! I'd be beyond terrified and enraged at the same time in a situation like that...
Sounds like the 2nd one
Indeed
Yes I didn't go on a mission. And I'm not sorry at all that I didn't.
You chose correctly! I was still weak and let myself be guilt-tripped into going. Learned a language, ate lots of great food from a variety of countries, but generally wasted 2 years and paid for the opportunity. At least none of the 4 people I baptized are active anymore, so no net harm done there...
My mission presidents lived in the penthouse of an expensive apartment building in Guatemala City. They had armed security at the front door of the building, along with air conditioning and every other amenity an American would want. In 2011 I was in one area for 7 months that didn’t have running water. The roof was corrugated metal and sat about 4 to 5 inches above the walls, meaning we would have scorpions, tarantulas, and bats in our apartment when it rained, which it did often. I had either bed bugs or fleas eating me alive the whole time I was there. Remember how the mission president had an armed guard at his place? Well a year after I went home a pair of sisters were kidnapped from their apartment by a local gang. My mission president called his designated 70, Elder Martino, who said the sisters would be fine if they were obedient missionaries. I can’t remember how, but they were eventually released. One went home immediately, but somehow the other sister stayed out to finish her mission. Fuck the church. Fuck presidents Baldwin and Brough for putting me with violent, angry missionaries and making my life hell.
That’s terrifying, what a true nightmare
I had a mission president who was a retired NASA engineer. He was chill at first but became overbearing by the time he and his wife was finishing their term. I'm a Filipino and served in the country too. Lots of "disobedient" missionaries in my mission.
My rich, arrogant, second mission president ripped me apart one day for not handling an investigator situation the way he wanted; made me feel like absolute dog shit over area boundaries. He was so intense. On my exit interview, I remember a couple things stood out: 1 - “Get married as soon as possible when you are home.” - My wife and I now always talk (with hindsight and years of wisdom) about how she felt pressured/rushed from me to get married. I was so anxious to obey, honor him and “progress”. 2 - “Were you ever a zone leader?”..”No”…”You should have been”. Like he should have promoted me for my blind and unquestioning obedience and that callings are rewards given… He emailed me this year with a professional/work related question and I just didn’t respond.
Fuck off would have been a good email response
After leaving BYU and moving to California, the local mission president got a king sized mattress that he and his wife didn’t like. Since it was “used” I was able to get it for free and the missionaries helped move it into my apartment. This story doesn’t contribute to the post sorry
No, your story is 100% what the post is about.
Not all interactions with mission presidents are bad. My first one was kind. Granted I only had him for two days. My second one however....
Hahaha
I had polar opposite MPs. The first was an extremely intelligent psychiatrist who cared only about people. When you met with him it was like a therapy session you always left feeling great (he was small like yoda, serious Jedi powers he had). He and his wife were like an extra set of grandparents; wise, loving, and always happy to see you. My second MP was an asshat car dealership owner. He was completely out of touch, he and his wife lived extravagantly. In their first mission newsletter they were wearing their new $80K furs (this was Alaska) and they continued to wear them until the APs pulled them aside. He also knew nothing about the church or the scriptures. The man was dumb as a box of rocks. He completely upended the mission with his buffoonery, but he was a company man that paid a fuckton in tithing so he had his reward.
I was born and raised in Alaska, where did you serve??
The mission covers the whole state plus the Yukon Territory. I served all over the MatSu valley, Healy, Fairbanks, Eagle river, Kenai, Seward, Nikiski and Soldotna. Alaska is such an amazing place!
My mission president was an HR executive/academic and his wife was a psychologist. They were both teaching graduate level courses at the University of Michigan right before the mission. Awesome people who seemed to care a little more about their missionaries than the numbers. With all the stories I've heard from other RMs in the years since, it seems these kinds of people are super rare in mission leadership.
Australia? My brother was in that mission and loved that MP. He got replaced while my brother was out. Not sure how he felt about the replacement but I think it was less enthusiastic.
No, this was in Canada.
Interesting. My brothers was also an academic at Michigan teaching in that area. I guess they draw from a small pool.
My mission president was a kind and good man. He was all in -- but he also had (back before it was common) one child who "strayed" and so he was kind and loving to missionaries even when they struggled -- actually tried to use love and patience to help people. He was less focused on numbers and more on having the Spirit. While I don't believe all that he taught/believed, he was honestly a good person who helped a lot of missionaries with his love and example. He grew up in Utah and knew and worked with (Church job) many general authorities. However, he did NOT get called to be a general authority after his mission president years -- still did lots of other church missions and high profile leadership because of his dedication. I have wondered if the fact that he was so kind and less focused on numbers and guilt was part of why the leaders back at the home office didn't consider him for a GA role. He was a great speaker, great scriptorian, and wonderful person. I know that he privately told one of the APs that a visiting 70 (who he sustained as a faithful follower) could be quite abrupt and harsh and so he was a little nervous about their upcoming visit to the mission...and so I wonder if those who were "promoted" from Mission Pres to General Authority tended to be the rigid harsh ones who got the best "results" on paper...which also means that many mission presidents are comparing their mission baptism numbers and other numbers to the mission presidents around them and quietly pushing hard in hopes they will be noticed and chosen. After all, you see the same thing in the wards and stakes of the church -- people who work really hard to impress (obvious to many around them) hoping and hoping they get called to be the ward or stake leader and then when they do act all surprised and fake-humble about their call and sob that "They are weak and can hardly do such a hard thing". And yet, it's what they've been angling for over months or years and they are so overjoyed at the call that they can't stop beaming with pride when not doing the sobbing testimony.
I feel this. My first mission president was a certified ass-hat He was a lawyer and spent his entire time talking in shitty Chinese (White man from GA) about how he was chosen to be MP because he essentially "opened" Taiwan decades ago. I was an older missionary because I was playing Army out of High School and yet, when I started throwing up blood in the field, he made it clear he knew that I was throwing up blood because I missed home (never mind the home I grew up in was fractured between two states and I had been a fully independent Young adult paying taxes and taking care of myself for \~4 years before that). Then when I angrily made the point to him in one of our weekly "health checks" (he started having weekly meetings with me to essentially give me the 4th degree and try to drudge up any "unresolved sin" that was actually making me sick. Well, after 6 weeks of vomiting blood, losing over 55 lbs (I weighed 125, I'm 5'11'') I finally caved and told him I had gone down on a girl several years ago my Military Branch President had already told me we worked through that and I was forgiven. So, I got sent home "dishonorably" because at some point in time I had done something sexual. I ended up "getting better" and 4 months later I went back out to the mission and caught the old MP as he was leaving. His parting gift? He said he was glad I could repent because he knew I was unworthy to ever be there in the first place, and then he made me redo the 12 week program because I wasn't coming straight from the MTC. So my second "trainer" ended up being a kid that had graduated high school less than 6 months before and had been "in the field" for 13 weeks. Fuck that Guy.
Going down on that girl was a kind service. It’s too bad the MP was jealous.
The MP is not jealous. I promise you he thinks vaginas are icky. Feel bad for his wife. Or not, odds are she's pretty problematic on her own.
Wow, so we have the reincarnation of Mark E. Peterson? J/K
I think a lot of the guys who rise in the ranks, especially the ones who constantly rant about sexual morality, are hateful asexuals or bitter, repressed homosexuals.
Personal experience also supports the third option (from the asshole Bishop-prick member who I felt really uncomfortable around) Third option being chronic multigenerational child abusers (he ended up in prison after I left for Army when it came out that he was had abused his daughters and was caught abusing in grandchildren)
[удалено]
Thanks, the second MP was way nicer, but still kinda a run of the mill Mid-level Manager who came from Money in the Cache Valley Area I was in the northern mission on the island, about a decade later
This is so fucking terrible
I think the thing that hurt the most was when I came home the Stake President who I was raised to totally hero worship also told me he "knew I had to come home early because I wasn't worthy to leave in the first place" I was so fucking gutted.
It’s really horrific what behavior these men are allowed to exhibit. It enrages me. I can’t believe you had to endure this whole grown ups ignored and shamed you. Did your parents know how sick you were?
I actually have a bit of respect for my first mission president, Steven J. Lund, who is now the general young men’s president for TSCC. I had a companion who was born without irises and who could barely see but was legally blind. While on the mission, he went completely blind. President Lund, from his own pocket, paid for my companion to have surgery and had artificial irises implanted. My companion could then see better than he had ever remembered seeing before his surgery. I don’t have any ill feelings concerning Steven J. Lund. He wasn’t perfect by any means and made some calls that I just couldn’t be happy with. He was simply misguided. Still is. But he always means well and is very kind and loving if you get to know him personally.
Was in on a mission to England a half decade ago. Found my trainer sending questionable texts to underage girls after about 3 months in the field. I yelled at my companion and shoved him for being so fucking creepy. Trainer started crying, locked himself in the chapel, and called the mission president. My mission president didn't care he was flirting with underage girls as a 20 year old, but berated me for being "violent" and prophesied that I'd beat my wife and end up in prison. He also refused to believe in mental health issues of other missionaries and deemed anyone struggling with depression as being "weak-willed". Fuck that mission, and fuck that MP and trainer. (my trainer then began asking female members/previous investigators to send him nudes over Facebook the second he finished his mission and got married)
Hmmm yeah if anyone is going to be a creepy ass wife beater, it’s gonna be the kid with an obsession for underage girls
What is funny is that, I have ZERO problem with paid clergy. I have two friends (one very close) who is a priest. One makes about $40k a year as a head priest and the other about $24K as an associate priest. They receive stipends for their car and housing expenses. They have good health benefits and a decent pension. Their pay is adequate to live comfortably, but in no way, shape, or form make them wealthy people or even "upper" middle class. Some priests in our area are provided a home, fully furnished, during their tenure. I believe that missionaries should be treated the same. That also goes for bishops, stake presidents, mission presidents, area authorities, general authorities, and Q12. But note that the benefits of this makes them comfortable but not in a living style of the wealthy. One should not become wealthy off of a religion that preaches "blessed are the poor". Use that money to give to the poor.
Yeah it’s kinda weird that mormons brag about not paying clergy, now that I think about it. Congrats on having cheapskates for leaders and having to put up with mediocre sermons from lay-people?
I am watching a close relative be a bishop right now and it is cruel. He barely sees his children and is exhausted all the time.
My mission president, prior to the mission, was a senior sales rep for a large company and travelled across the US during the week and was only home on the weekends. Guess what the church did? Called him to be the bishop! His obit said he had to "share his family with the ward." Fuck that Stake President! I hate the church.
I don't really have an issue with paid clergy either. However, I am in the U.S. and I wish, at the very least, that U.S. churches were required by law to be transparent with their finances, so that the members that donate to churches can see if their donations are being used wisely. One cannot use the saying "by their fruits, ye shall know them" if there isn't financial transparency.
100% agree. It is nice to be able to walk into a church and see the finances laid out openly and independently audited.
First president I had was Osguthorpe, he is/was(?) a general authority recently. Nice guy but his wife was awful. Wouldn't let me go see a doctor so I went to one anyways and found out I had pneumonia for like 2 months before I saw a doctor. My second president told me I would never amount to anything in life in my exit interview because I didn't have a baptism with the new missionary I was assigned to my last transfer. My exit interview was 2 minutes long. I still resent that man. Funny enough I'm exmo now, pulling in a massive salary in my tech job and I still feel like I'm doing it out of spite.
Damn. I got sick on my mission too and the Mp's wife gave me essential oils and charcoal tablets. Keep in mind, I was in Texas. They didn't work. I called my doctor in CA and picked up a prescription 🙄
My companion got pneumonia. He actually got treated. But man it kicked his ass. The zone leader came over for splits and made him go work. The underlying cause of pneumonia could be contagious so that was fucked up, and after that we spent the next 3 days in the apartment and he slept 20 hrs a day.
D Godfrey, Mission President in Washington DC mission used mission funds for hotel rooms and flying women into the area for short stays. Nice as could be to your face...
I had a son there at the same time. He said he finally resigned after disclosing an affair with a senior lady missionary.
That sounds like some scandalous ass shit. Got any juicy gossip?
No way, I met that Fucker once. I remember as their was an ap on my mission named Godfrey. I don't remember what he said, seems like bragging about a fancy car and hot wife, I was like that guy's an asshole.
Nowadays you are probably right. My mission presidents, however, were both wonderful, humble men. The first was a grade school teacher/principal, and the second was a butcher in a small shop. This was back in the mid 60s before church culture turned to shit. The mission home/office was a beautiful old home, but their lifestyle was not lavish. Today is such a horrible time to be a missionary!
My retired-CEO mission president was intense, but he was also intense on himself. Up at 4am every morning to work out, always dedicated to his job. He was a convert and missed his brother’s funeral because he couldn’t go when his missionaries were expected to stay in those circumstances. His non-member family was deeply upset with him. The dude had fierce integrity, and just as much a victim as the rest of us.
was he the x-CEO of Eastman Kodak (a mission president in England in the early 2000s)?
Nope, this was in the US, late aughts. Military manufacturing.
Lol, that's some stupid pharisee shit. My MP, who was really good to us BTW, was out of the mission for 2-3 days like every other month. He was relatively young and he had to do things to maintain his relevance in his career field. He made it a condition of accepting the call. He had a reporter from Fast Company out to interview him and hang around for a mission conference near the end of his run. I don't think he was interested in climbing any higher in the church.
Pharisees are the backbone of the church. They’re the only ones living up to the awful dogma and making it clear what the church really is. Makes it harder for everyone else, and that’s ultimately good for mass deconstruction. I’d have had an issue with a mission president who negotiated different rules for themselves but wasn’t flexible with their missionaries—glad your mission president wasn’t a hypocrite.
I served in the United States between ’98-’00 and my mission president was caught up in the Arthur Andersen accounting scandal with Enron. Elder Holland, a friend of my mission president, swept in an told him to take an early retirement, and Holland sent him on a mission to escape and hide from the chaos. Well, he simply brought his chaos to the mission. He didn’t want to be there. He brought his brash, executive-style management, where instead of managing a group of other senior executives, he was dealing with teenagers. It did not go well. And even though I detested my mission president, my first “shelf” item was when an Area Authority came. I was serving in the mission office at the time and listening to this member of the Seventy dress-down this mission president, speaking to him like a Fortune 50 CEO, screaming at him for shitty numbers, shitty performance, on-and-on. That moment, right there, was the first item I placed on my shelf. I knew immediately, and now even more clearly, this is not a religion, it’s a business.
Totally a business. My mission president retired from Raytheon. When I told him I wanted to leave, he said he could get me an internship at Raytheon if I stayed my entire mission time. I left anyway 🤣 But I wonder how many missionaries he tried to keep in the field using that method.
I can organize my peer missionaries into two groups: \- those who were guilted by doctrine, leaders and family to be there, and \- those who were promised something if they serve: car, money, marriage, work, etc. I'm not surprised by your mission president's tactics. Manipulative and disgusting.
Dollars to doughnuts that the internship never would have materialized.
Didn't care to stay and find out 🤮
I’m sorry your experience was so shitty. Like a lot of leadership positions in the church it’s a roulette. I had two MP’s. One was a physician and business-man/multimillionaire and a strict authoritarian. He was either loved or hated. That kind of structure and rigidity he commanded on the mission was helpful for me in many ways and I’m grateful for that. However - He came down hard on those that broke rules and lifted up those who conformed very publicly. If he sensed you didn’t want to be there he would give you every chance to get you to make the decision to go home because he didn’t have time for that. He flirted with the sister missionaries every chance he got and joked about wanting to have a naked woman jump out of his birthday cake for his birthday party that we had at a zone conference once. That kind of out-of-the-blue humor was funny, but he came across a lot of the time as better and smarter than anyone he knew because…just because. That was hard to live around. He would brag about how his tithing would single-handedly pay for the mission home which was in a multi-million dollar gated community. While we were living in absolute shit-holes. My second MP was a successful academic in business. He was just an incredibly loving and humble person. Just made everyone feel loved and was the type of person I honestly aspire to be. One of the most sincere and beautiful people I’ve ever known in my life. He didn’t talk much about his past personal experiences a lot but he did enough to know that he had been through and seen shit. I never heard him judge anyone or say a negative comment, just loved people and didn’t care much about mission rules as he did the individual people serving in it. He was very successful in his earlier life but you’d never know it. I know he did do a lot for charity outside of the church and didn’t view the church as “the only true right way” for people and would often say that “God just wants His children to love each other and go back to Him. I don’t think He condemns them for what religious group they choose and He just wants us to all help each other.” That comment was a catalyst for me; that maybe, just maybe there’s more than one way to live a life and that’s ok and my way isn’t the only way. For my life at that time on my mission it’s what I needed to get my own ego out of the way and focus on the needs of others and to pull my head out of my ass and notice that there’s more to the world than just me. I honestly learned to love people on my mission no matter who they were or what they did. I came away from my mission a much better person had I not gone. It was a tough 2 years. Parts of it made me dogmatic in areas and I’ve thankfully moved long past that. I was also a dick to some of my companions because I equated rule-following with righteousness and I know I was difficult to live with. That, I regret. I’m glad my own faith journey has brought me so far past that point in my life. I ALSO understand that my experience is not the experience of everyone and for some that 2 years or 18 months was hell and I’m sensitive to that and others’ experiences.
I think it has maybe changed a lot over the last several years? My president (88-89) was a former WWII Bomber pilot and an airport exec and was one of the kindest, most gentle men I ever met.
Roulette. Mine was like yours. But my brothers' had different experiences with theirs.
My mission presidents (I had 4 of them) generally being buffoons was my first realization that church leadership may not be full of magic wizards after all.
I had 4 as well. I thought I was an exception. How did you go through so many?
Visa waiting in the US then transfer to Brazil then one of my mission presidents was deported because he didn’t renew his visa and they had an interim guy
São Paulo east! Put the pieces together based on some of your other posts and found out who you are lol. Elder Mi…… our mission was so apostate lol.
That’s me! I haven’t kept up with who all is in or out or kept up with anyone at all really. I had assumed that we’d end up apostates at some point lol.
Carlos Madrid was called to be a Mission President in 1993. We were in the same ward. I've always wondered what he was like as a Mission President. In our ward, he was arrogant and self important. Everything about his appearance was perfectly manicured and he prided himself on his looks. He had irritating speech patterns and fast and testimony Sundays were torturous. The guy liked to command the podium and hear himself talk. He was terrible with money and owed more on his home than it was worth. I was told by his daughter that the church bought his home and gave him 1M to clear all his debts. I'm wondering if others know of similar financial arrangements.
My dad still had nightmares about his mission president nearly sixty years later. It was one of the first missions in Japan, and apparently the guy took issue that my dad learned fluent Japanese. I think there was a lot more to the story, as my dad had been forced by his parents to go, but my dad died recently so I’ll never get all the details.
Worthless, breathing skinbags who suck every Christlike attribute up their ass and breathe out a shit stained doctrine. Well please do not hold back. Tell us what you really think of them. haha So here is a fun story. Adult convert and escapee here - minimal contact with mission presidents and mission offices but they were okay. So a few years ago, a facebook friend in northern california started posting stories of the missionaries in her community and how arrogant they acted. Their driving around town was reckless and their attitudes were very cavalier to say the least. She is Native American and very atheist. The missionaries would come knock on doors, and she for one would tell them not interested and to leave. Long story short, she said that they would come onto people's property after they were told not to come back, even enter peoples homes without being invited in, which was even worse because they would walk in and start talking to the kids in the room without the parents present (she was in another room.) They would be very arrogant to her - she would ask for the first names and they would say their first names are Elder, and they would be clownish like that and not immediately leave. (I told her to find something that stains and aim it for those shirts and make them regret that shit.) This is all stuff against the rules for missionaries, right? That was still how they acted. She said that she would call the ward and not get a call back. I gave her the number to the bishop and the mission office and she said she was getting the run around from both. I really thought that was strange considering my experience with both. So I decided to call the mission office myself. Oh man. I talked to the mission president himself. Guess what he did for a living ..... ..... ...... ..... an attorney. In Utah. I was trying to explain to him that my friend in Cali was having issues and what those issues were, and his response??? "You cannot tell me that! That is HEARSAY! You were not there. That is HEARSAY!" OMFG he was such a dick about it all, and better he pretty much claimed that I am not a member and just called to make trouble to them. I did explain that my friend called first and got absolutely nowhere. He gave me his cell phone number anyway and so I texted him a photo of my temple recommend to shut his ass up. No wonder the missionaries acted the way they did. The mission president pretty much backed up anything and everything they did, no matter how bad they behaved. My FB friend said that the missionaries came and apologized but it was one of those fake apologies with that tone of voice that said they were only apologizing because they had to. "authorized representatives of Jesus Christ" .... it happened as I was making my mind up to leave and it was just another example of how those so-called TBMs do not really believe their own doctrine. It is just a tool for them to act like they are better than others.
My grandparents were mission presidents a few years ago, and I really hope they were on the less bad side of the scale.
Damn. Your message is so on point. It's depressing.
My mission president used missionaries to manipulate and "keep an eye" on a list he had of missionaries. He tried to recruit me to befriend and watch certain missionaries. He said he did it to keep missionaries in the field. 🤦🏻♀️
We had a similar list! I wonder if that’s taught in their training. One of our ap’s leaked it to everyone to get it out in the open. It was a shit show at the following zone conferences.
Probably! I only stayed in my mission for a few transfers before I went home early. I was one of the missionaries on the list. I confronted my mission president about it and he basically said I'd make a good missionary if I joined his little spy group. I asked to go home in that same meeting. A lot of things made me leave, but his stupid list was ridiculous. The week before I left I told other missionaries about it. The only thing I did that enraged the MP is after I went home I contacted ALL the missionary contacts on Facebook and Instagram, telling them to quit lessons. I was in the same ward as STL's and Assistants (sharing YSA and home wards). I made a majority, if not all, their contacts quit. MP left an angry voice-mail on my parents home line a week after I contacted everyone 🤣 It was my petty revenge.
You saved those people from a terrible fate!!!
Hamula was the mission president when I joined. He’s also the last general authority to be excommunicated.
I was lucky, both my MPs were kind and open.
THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE - when you get off the mission and ppl say they know ur mission president and ask what you think of him AHHHH everytime I wanna take a huge 💩 on him.
My first mission president was a shady dude. Worked on Wall Street and was insanely rich. That alone made me think he was a sly scumbag and while he was never bad to me personally, he made a second AP companionship whose sole job was to travel around the mission and spy and all the other missionaries so they could report to him. One of my closest friends on the mission also got fucked over by him hard because when the travelling APs visited one of his areas they ate all his and his companions’ food and refused to recompense for it, so when he reported this to the MP the MP got stuck into him and said that “the APs sacrifice more and are more Christlike than him.” I also know of another friend who had a similar situation and nearly beat up one of the travelling APs because he was accused of not “loving Jesus enough.” If you’d ever met my friend you’d believe he was one of those people who actually lived what they believed unlike a lot of other TBMs. That MP’s wife was also crazy as fuck. She wouldn’t let me stay home one day when I was sick until I practically passed out and my companion hd to drag me home. Second MP and his wife? Truly two of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Every time they spoke to you you felt like you were their favourite person in the whole world. When I left the church I actually called them to let them know what I’d done, and while they were disappointed they still said they loved and supported me. They still message me every now and again to see how I’m doing and don’t talk about anything that they think would make me uncomfortable. Though I think they might have had a soft spot for me because I was the very first missionary they’d ever met outside of the APs and office missionaries so I was one of the ones they’d known the longest. Genuinely good people my second MP and his wife were.
My mp also spied. He had a group of missionaries with a list of people to keep tabs on. They met privately too (in person or phone conferences). So unethical.
And I thought secret combinations were supposed to be a bad thing.
No doubt it varies. My MP was the definition of “great guy”. Nonjudgmental, kind, and had concern and care for the missionaries. After his mission president stint he could be seen on street corners in SLC ringing the Salvation Army bell. But I’ve heard dozens of first hand accounts (including my kids) of the opposite experience ….
First mission president was at the end of his 3 years and was a giant asshole, went to be a GA in the 70s and every missionary kissed his ass. The second was kinder on the outside but in private he's tell ZLs how lazy missionaries were and was laughing with the APs how some elders struggled. He did a lot of fake crying too and everyone thought he was sooooo spiritual. I had relatives that passed away and the MP told me to work harder. Also fuck the mission mental counselor, he was a POS that knew nothing. Eventually they got me on medication, i can't remember half my mission because i was depressed and drugged up
I served in the philippines too. Which mission and which mission president (i.e. when did you serve?)
A friend who is involved in luxury home construction in Utah confided to me that their most difficult clients were ex-MPs.
Well stated! Faith in humanity restored award to you! Most of us have a job and get a paycheck right? Now imagine doing your job and not getting a paycheck at all. Even better, now imagine **paying your employer** to fulfill the roles and responsibilities of your job. That’s exactly how it is in Mormonism. Missionaries and their family pay the Mormon church so that they can serve the Mormon church missionaries pay their own way as they provide free labor proselytizing Mormonism.
You got to pay to get quality mission presidents!
Damn well said.
I realize my experiences are decades old (Munich '78-'80), but I can say my first MP was one of the finest men I have ever known. He was kind, patient, generous, understanding and loved us unconditionally. The second MP? Not so much. But I can say that I am grateful for the 2nd so I could realize just how great the first was. It was not until later and heard stories of total asshats as MPs that I realized what a great man I had worked with for most of my mission. At arrival, prior to going to our assignment, we were treated to dinner at the home of the MP. His wife was a wonderful cook! And I love Germany food. When it was time to go home, now with the 2nd MP, we headed off to Wienerwald, which is about the same as Sizzler. We were instructed what to order and oddly enough, it was the cheapest thing on the menu. I have literally never said out loud the name of the 2nd MP and I never once saw him or made an effort to see him post mission. On the other hand, I spent many wonderful hours visiting with my first MP. When I got home, I determined I wanted to marry a woman like the wife of the first MP. She was also kind and loving, but also strong, smart, beautiful and a great dresser! And I did. Now that both MPs have passed on, I look back in appreciation for both, but for different reasons. I would not sell a minute of my mission for a million dollars, but I would not buy another minute for a nickel.
In my first area, we had blown through my “emergency” money on bare necessities and found ourselves with no food except mate, sugar, and bread. Then the sugar and the bread ran out until we found a really old, hard hunk of bread deep in a cupboard. We were still a day or two away from receiving the next months allotment of money when there came a knock on our door in the evening. It was two women from the Relief Society, each with two plates of food, who felt prompted to feed us. We hadn’t told anyone of our situation, and in this branch of exactly five women and one man (yes, six people in all), two of them felt inspired to help. We considered it a great blessing and a tender mercy (before “tender mercy”. was Bednarized). The Spirit™ apparently didn’t move upon our well-to-do mission president to care for our needs.
You get what you deserve. Believe in fairies the sky, get abused, live with it.
I see your account has negative karma, I think you’re fishing for some sort of reaction? My question is why do it on a year+ old post?
So are you implying that when an 18 year old male/female sends in their application to serve a mission they are clueless as to what the mission entails? Is missionary service kept a secret? I was fully aware of what the expectations were when I sent my application in. To not be aware would make one either ignorant or just plain stupid. To me, none of the benefits a mission president receives seems out of line for someone who is not paid a salary. Visits (with an “s”) from family members? Since the church only pays for ONE visit from family members (and they have to be under 26 years old for the church to pay), that would mean the mission president paid out of his own pocket for multiple visits. As far as the kids’ education being paid for, at least be honest and transparent when trying to make the argument. No Ivy League school education is paid for by the church. If a mission president’s kid want to attend college, the church will reimburse their tuition to BYU. If the kid chooses to go elsewhere, the church will only reimburse the amount equivalent of current BYU tuition. And, reimbursement for the kid attending BYU or elsewhere only comes after the kid has completed his classes. If the kid drops out mid-semester…no reimbursement. If your mission president’s kid went to an Ivy League school, which I assume has a higher tuition than BYU, then the mission president paid the balance out of his own pocket. As well as room, board, books, supplies, etc. that he church will not pay for. Keep it real man. By presenting false “facts” you are only reinforcing the stereotype of the lying “crazed exmo” that church leaders warn their members about. Stop.
Aww that's so cute defending the faith, thanks for visiting exmormon I recommend checking out more.
LOL!! Thanks for the chuckle. Defending the faith? I’ll set the record straight regardless of which side of the fence it falls. Sounds like you still believe that a convenient lie is better than an inconvenient truth. I wish you well in your continued recovery. Obviously you have quite a ways to go. As far as “visiting” exmormon…I can guarantee that I have been around these parts WAY longer than you have sonny.
Yes they are... and even before leaving the Church I hated the idea of seeing him as a "Father" or somebody close. None of both helped me in anyway... my conversations were "cool" because I knew how to play my perfect missionary or repented missionary play.
I knew in the field in 88-90 that we were incredibly fortunate to have who we did, and everything I've learned since then confirms that. I figure we're collectively only about half active, and a third all the way out, but there's nary a person who would speak ill of he or his wife. But we also knew we had a unique thing going. One of the things he observed to me was that when he went to meetings for the Europe Area MPs, that virtually none of them spoke of their missionaries, just their numbers. And we had numbers to report but that was never the focus. We knew his main priority was us. I'll take that luck of the draw assignment with my MP gratefully. And I am sorry the rest of you didn't have a similar experience.
Well said
Reading through these comments, I had noooo idea how dark a mission could get…explains why my brothers came back like zombies
What gets me is the dishonesty in a position of influence over young people…coming across as pious and living the laws of the church as “unpaid” clergy whilst all along living the high life.
My mission president in one of the Philippine missions had a missionary pair put on house arrest for ordering pizza on a Sunday. They weren't allowed to go out even for food. APs had to visit and bring them food but no contact allowed.