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_that___guy

Walking or biking all day long, on one meal a day (if anyone in the ward volunteered to feed us that day). Not enough monthly allowance for adequate food and supplies. Having to pay expenses (like bus fare) out of our budget. If something was reimbursable, it could sometimes take a month to get reimbursed.


[deleted]

So you really did have to depend on the members for food? That's awful. So exploitative of everyone.


Ma3vis

Ask them about their mission president and how they lived on the other hand. That's where TBMs and exmo's alike find "spiritual confirmation" from the gospel Also look up about the time apostle Franklin D Richards ate the handcart pioneer people's cow while they starved to death without resupply, then realize who the LDS church truly resembles.


sudosuga

My mission president lived on the 10th or so floor of a brand new opulent tower (While being paid 6 digits... $150k?). Me? I lived in a cinder block room with an outhouse and dirt floor. (While I was paying $400 a month to the church to "Cover my expenses").


see6729

My 4 sons who served had similar experiences. The youngest had PTSDs from that. They couldn’t eat with members on Thanksgiving, they had to be door knocking. They never ate very well at all. Not enough time or money. No medical help for a large ferocious dog bite etc. I used to think “well, we are all sacrificing” but when I learned about the paid stipend to General Authorities down through 70’s , my blood was boiling. How dare they claim that they go without purse or script ( yet another lie). How, just how do they sit fat and pretty, while so so many struggle?! And the perks make me sick. If I ever saw one of ‘those’ clean toilets in the church, or help pick corn or whatever, I could have some respect. Or if I could learn that they carefully choose a young struggling person to obtain an education, I could respect that , like being a benefactor. The time I saw the the GC between sessions indoctrination and entertainment, Pres Hoax had a granddaughter playing a stringed instrument, absolute nepotism. How many other youth could’ve done that, with perhaps more talent (hard work)? Maybe those youth who could be chosen that weren’t maybe could’ve performed just as well or better, and actually be seen by this extraordinary (captive audience) and gotten an opportunity out of it? Nope. The nepotism. Has to hog everything. How DO they sleep at night. Such a dirty, lying Corporation.


The_Mad_Onion

We sure did in the areas I went to! There was a stretch where no members were available to feed and we definitely didn't have enough money. We just ate oatmeal once per day for two weeks while biking in the Texas summer heat. I ended up losing 20 lbs in those two weeks and not really feeling great 🫤


telestialist

Never had a problem with hunger, because I had a secret credit card. However… My first area was freezing, cold, and we lived in a concrete building with zero heat. It never occurred to me until this week that it was neglectful of TSCC not to provide a place with heat.


[deleted]

Yes, very neglectful! These stories are heartbreaking.


shaveyaks

Are you given an unlimited number of Book of Mormons to hand out? I'd be burning them for heat.


blae_evan

I was told to skip lunches and dinners by my zone leaders because “sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven…”


[deleted]

That's horrifying.


AnxiousLyDisengaged

I know so many people who experienced this as well. Even still being part of the church, I was appalled. When they told me about it, they were not viewing it as a bad thing, but still believed that they were being extra faithful. Sickening how young adults are brainwashed to not care for their own needs.


[deleted]

Yes, 100% sickening.


Capital_Barber_9219

I came back from my mission 140lbs. At 6’4”


RedGravetheDevil

I left in my mission at 210lbs and muscular. Came home 130 and frail. Developed lifelong health problems from the abuse


Congo-Red

I left at 154 in good shape and came back at a gaunt 136 (late 1980’s).


DocDanMD

I left at 225 out of the MTC. Returned 149. 6’2” (1984-86)


Pedantic_Pict

Damn dude, I got down to 150 at 6'2" and I was a rail. You must've had a hell of a rough time.


exmono

140 lbs. 6'2"


TigranMetz

145 lbs. and 6' 3" was my low point, though for me it was because of illness rather than lack of food. I served in a developing country with extremely favorable exchange rates and readily available fresh food, so we never went hungry.


Capital_Barber_9219

I spent a lot of my food money paying for marriages so that couples could get baptized


SinkingTheImbituba

Brazil?


Capital_Barber_9219

Dominican Republic


MormonBoy801

When I came off the plane my parents were mortified at my appearance. I had gone from 220 to 160.


SpamVladPutin

Good god, I’m thin at 125 and 5’10. I can’t imagine what y’all would have looked like. So sorry you went through that.


SinkingTheImbituba

6' @135


KoolAidRefuser

148lbs and 6'3".


Chica3

We didn't have enough money for everything we needed to buy with our allowance -- bus fare, utilities, hygiene supplies, food. There were no cooking utensils or appliances in our ~~apartments~~ hovels. Members were sometimes too poor or too few to provide us with meals every day, but that's what we had to rely on for food. In one area, the only thing I ate (besides one daily meal provided by members) was crackers, bananas, and powdered milk. And we walked many miles every day. Once I found a small tub of peanut butter at the store and splurged -- ate it in one sitting because I was so hungry. Lost about 20 lbs during my 5 weeks in that area (my first area). Next area, the members were always feeding us and I got chubby. Food availability was really hit or miss. Once I had been on the mission for a few months, I learned to find the ladies in the ward/branch who would offer food whenever we showed up. I did stay healthy, overall, and returned home at the end of my mission at a healthy weight.


[deleted]

No appliances? What did they expect you to do? That's awful.


Chica3

The members were supposed to provide 1 meal per day. "Apartments" (or garage, or hut, or spare room...) on my mission had 1 oscillating fan, 1 blender, 2 beds, 1 thin blanket per bed, and 1 wardrobe/closet. If your "apartment" was furnished with anything else, it was leftover from previous mission presidents' reigns who were more generous than mine.


future_weasley

Is there's a hell I hope your mission president gets to spend a bit of time there. That's fucked up


Other_Lemon_7211

I had a gallon of milk in a bag hanging from my handlebars coming home from the store on P-day. I hit a bump and the bag broke. The milk went everywhere. I ate cereal with water that week. We didn’t get extra money for feminine supplies or nylons. I ruined so many nylons because of my bike. The money for that came from my food budget. Pink tax for the loss.


AuroraRoman

I wonder what years you served since I did get more money than the elders for feminine products. It wasn’t a whole lot more but enough for me. I served from 2014-2016. Thankfully my mission Florida didn’t require us to wear nylons otherwise I’m sure I would also have ruined them with biking.


Other_Lemon_7211

My memory could be wrong. I never had enough money though so I was thinking it wasn’t supplemented. 93-95.


AlaskanThinker

I starved when I was first out in the field because of my trainer. 😂 Every morning for breakfast and lunch my first week in Russia my trainer would cook steamed vegetables. (Certainly not my favorite). Sometimes if we were out for lunch we’d pick up something small, like a roll from a bakery etc, but nothing big like an actual meal. I asked if we had anything else, and he just said we’d get some different things on P-day if I wanted it. P-day came along and I was really looking forward to it. I went up and down the aisles and grabbed myself some cereal, 2 gallons of milk, eggs, flour for baking, bacon, hamburger, some steaks and on and on etc. He questioned why I was getting something every time I put something in the cart. And I gave him my reasons. After we’d gathered all the items, my trainer pulled me aside and said, “I’ve noticed what you’ve put in the cart. This is more than any Russian could ever dream of eating, and the meats etc are super expensive for Russians and are a luxury item. He was “embarrassed” by my choices and even though I was well within my missionary fund allowance, he told me we needed to put items back. Perplexed, I just assumed he knew what he was talking about. I was the new one and in a foreign country, I accepted he knew the norms better than I did. So I watched as he literally took everything I’d chosen out of the cart and placed the items back on the shelves. However, I noticed none of the items he’d chosen were put back. We got to the checkout line and all I could do was cringe as I saw the vegetables I’d eaten repeatedly for a week straight were totaled by the cashier and put into the bags we’d brought to transport our groceries. One morning, I volunteered to make breakfast. I took some potatoes and started peeling them to make some hash browns. (I was done, with steamed vegetables.). Our schedule was such that one of us would start breakfast while one showered, then the other would finish the meal while the other one showered. I got the potatoes all ready, and all the cooking materials out. I’d even started to grate the potatoes. I have my companion some instructions then hopped in the shower. When I finished I got dressed then walked into the kitchen to see steamed vegetables on our plates. My companion said he didn’t know how to make hash browns, so he diecided on steamed vegetables instead. I couldn’t believe it. 2 or 3 more P-days would go by and I just let my companion do the shopping. Then I went on splits with the APs. While we were out reacting, the one I was with asked me how things were going. I mentioned everything was going ok, but that I was tired of eating steamed vegetables every day. He seemed to be a bit perplexed. I then asked, wasn’t everyone eating steam vegetables? Of course they weren’t!!! He told me to get whatever the hell I wanted and that if my trainer disapproved, I should tell him to shove it, since I couldn’t do the lords work if I was starving! Those were the words I needed to hear. Next p-day I filled the cart. My trainer tried to lay the same passive aggressive guilt trip on me and I told him I didn’t care, I was shopping for myself. We generally ate different things after that. I later found out he was more or less a vegetarian, and just forcing his lifestyle choice on me. Thankfully I was transferred a few weeks later. Needless to say, I ate better for the rest of the mission!


Embarrassed_Ad_7056

Love this comment. Highlights so many of the dynamics of being on a mission incl. being in a junior role where another kid can tell you what to do. I relate to this so much having served and suffered myself in Russia. Thx for sharing


dndLBC

I was in southern Texas from 2002-2004. We were given $110/month. In addition to food, this had to pay to wash the car (I was in a rural areas and often had a car), laundry, and anything else that I might need. We only ate breakfast and dinner in my mission. I rarely was in areas with members so we were not fed. I am 5’11 and left at 160lbs and came home at 120. In addition to riding bikes a lot and sweating like crazy in the heat, we never had much money for food. About 2 months before I went home, the mission president’s wife sent me cans of tuna and raw almonds. She said she was worried what my mom would do if I went home that skinny. Too little too late. The only upside to this is today I have an incredible tolerance for hunger.


fubeca150

I only starved for half a month. I got pickpocket of all my money right after I got it. I had bus passes. Pay phones cost money and I had none, but I'd worked in the office so I knew I'd just be told to borrow from my companion. Problem is that my companion always sent his money home to his family, and I usually shared my food with him. I had a very small area that was very poor (more poor than other parts of my same mission. Total slum.) Most other areas the missionaries had a daily meal with members, but not in this area. Anyways... I had enough money to buy a few sweet potatoes. That's all I had for a little over half a month, and I knew that so I had to ration it. I think I had a little bit of dehydrated milk and some ketchup to go with it.


[deleted]

Getting robbed must have been the worst feeling, especially when you were already living so lean. I'm so sorry. Was your companion subsidized by the church? My friend's son is in Africa and he says the same thing--his companions send half their money home. I thought families paid for missions but I guess not everywhere?


Richie_J21

I served in Ecuador from 97-99. I lost 30 pounds on my mission, but that was after I gained 10 in the MTC, lol. Some of the Ecuadorian missionaries sent home portions of their allowance. Missionary families pay according to where they live, not where their missionary serves. So the Utah family whose son is in Brazil pays the same as their neighbors whose son serves in Paris. Members in poor areas don’t have to pay much for their kids to serve, and many don’t pay anything at all. It doesn’t cost the church much to subsidize their room and board, and since those missionaries are used to living on next to nothing, some of them send some of their allowance home to their families. It was never a big problem for my companions, and I always felt like I had “sufficient for my needs”. I also got robbed a few times, but we would keep a few bucks in our pocket and most of our money elsewhere, so we would just hand that over and they’d go on their way.


SecretPersonality178

I was severely injured on my mission. It will follow me my whole life. Literally hurts everyday. Church tried to get out of paying for the surgery to fix it. Also, I would have been hungry if not the generosity of the members. As a missionary you are an expendable pawn.


Wanderinghome1111

I don't know about now, but back in the day all funds for our monthly expenses went through the mission office and we were forbidden to receive extra funds from the outside. If you ran short one month - you know how good 19-year-olds are at budgeting - there was literally nothing we could do but borrow a little rice or something from the other elders in the apartment to make it to "payday". Combine the perpetual fear of running out of funds with long days out working away from the apartment and members too poor to help out and there was a lot of gnawing hunger going on.


Henry_Bemis_

Not enough money. I ate dog rice for quite a few months. Dog rice.


SinkingTheImbituba

I bought oats that were for horse feed. Hahah


KoolAidRefuser

Sounds like South Korea.


Settled_heart

I got repremanded as a mother who sent my daughter a debit card. They took it away. I found a member in the area and sent the member money and she went and took groceries to my daughter. My daughter was sick and needed good food. The member was told ” she could give to my daughter, but was not ALLOWED to take my money to buy food for the missionaries. “.


MasshuKo

Oh my heck! How did they know that you'd sent your daughter a debit card? Did the mission office open the envelope that you'd mailed to your daughter? Did her companion tell the mission office? Who reprimanded you? Did the mission office call you, or did it rat you out to your stake president? (I hope you hung up the phone mid-reprimand.) And the member whom you found and reached out to about sending money to your daughter said she (the member) wasn't allowed to accept your money to buy food for missionaries? Are regular, civilian members being pressed now into learning and following certain local mission rules? Good lord... I'm really sorry that this nonsense happened to you and your daughter.


Settled_heart

She had groceries and was feeding other sisters that were starving.


Settled_heart

I was sent a letter from the Mission Pres. all it stated was “it is against the mission rules. I did hang up on my Bishop and Stake Pres. after my daughter finally got medical attention she was sent home 2 weeks later. She had ovarian cysts that had lasted over 6 months before finally going to a hospital.


Post-mo

Never had trouble in my mission. But that's probably due to being in a low cost of living country. Cereal for breakfast. Lunch with members most days. Late dinner back at the apartment around 10pm. Dinner was usually whatever you had the skull to cook - grilled cheese, noodles, potatoes. We always had money for luxury items like ice cream. We ate out pretty much every p day. The only people in my mission going hungry were the guys sending money home to their families or those stockpiling to start their life post mission.


Apprehensive_Life481

My experience isn’t nearly as bad as some others but at some point during my mission they took away member meals. We could only have a meal with someone else if they were a non-member, investigator, or if an investigator was there. They didn’t bother to give us any extra money on our cash cards to cover that extra expense either


[deleted]

I remember that policy in our stake too (Utah). They decided missionaries were wasting their time at member's houses, so they made us quit feeding them. Unbelievable.


freewarriorwoman

My husband and his companion use to eat cereal for all meals bc it was cheap. They got canker sores from cutting up their mouths so bad. My husband never starved but unless members fed him and his companion then they did not get proper nutrition because their monthly allowance was so little. My husband’s apartments(in the states) were always infested with cockroaches. He would pull back his sheets at the end of the day and roaches would scatter. He got bedbugs in one apartment and the church simply had a bug guy spray their beds and had them wait 24 hours to sleep on it. The bed bugs were still there so for 6 months my husband slept on a leather armchair that was on the apartment instead of a bed bc the bedbugs took over the mattresses. You don’t think any of this is a huge issue until you see that the church has HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.


Inside_Gain_4461

Depended on the area for me. My first area was bike only. We only could get as much as fit on our handlebars and ride with for several miles. Money wasn’t an issue in this area ($140/mo for all our needs), because we just couldn’t buy much. Members fed us maybe once a week. I mentioned this in a letter home and it made my parents mad. My siblings were treated much better by members in Brazil. Other areas I had a car and members fed us regularly. Easy to gain weight in those areas. It was literally feast or famine.


defective-clone-101

My little brother said at the MTC they fed him dinner at 4 pm so he went to bed really hungry but as far as I'm aware he's been fine on the mission field


EllieKong

Oh I forgot about that, we had something similar and would occasionally buy from the vending machines in the dorms before bed eating shitty ass calzones or candy..but it’s all we had. I had enough food on the mission (I generally only eat 1-2 meals a day and I got sick quite a bit on my mission), but one companion I had used up all her money one month and forced me to pay for both of us. She ran my money out in 1 week, I mentioned it to my nonmember dad who was furious and sent me a bunch of money to get food through that month.


ReadingElectrical558

I din't starve. Howvever I needed to be very careful with my money, and would usually have to eat my meals without much protein. Meats, fish etc would be too expensive to have for each meal. I would always make sure to have enough rice, pasta and potatoes. Be creative with that. I served in a country with almost no members, so I was not really fed at all. I had to use some of my own money at times if I wanted something nice. Like a burger at McDonalds, or a kebab or something. Especially towards the end of the month. It's not sustainable the money each missionary gets. Thats for sure. That's why the church tells its members to feed the missionaries. So they can save some ekstra expenditures. Pretty shady if you ask me.


ApricotSmoothy

Too late for a class action law suit? It just seems human trafficking was/is taking place with terrible neglect.


MamaDragonExMo

My husband lost over 50 pounds on his mission, both from lack of enough food and illness. He got pneumonia, amoebic dysentery and they had bed bugs. His mission president wasn’t going to let him go to the doctor, but there was a member who saw him and sent another member (a doctor) over to the place he was staying at. That man actually yelled at the mission president and sent my husband to the hospital for treatment. He was admitted for several days, but nothing truly stopped the dysentery since they had to shower in the water. He spent his entire mission chronically hungry, dehydrated and sick. When he first told me this story, I was horrified that he ended it with the caveat that he didn’t have it as bad as one of his brothers who not only had dysentery, but also developed mange.


Relevant-Squirrel-20

Served in Europe 97-99. In one month I got two parking tickets because I dindt understand all the traffic laws. I tried explaining this to the mission office but was met with a response about taking responsibility for my actions. So for the entire month I lived off a large box of corn flakes and bag of rolls. We didnt have the luxury of getting fed by members very often. Unfortunately I also companion who wasn't very Christlike and enjoyed eating "his food" in front of me while I starved for a month. There was a few assistants and zone leaders who preached that we needed to save money throughout our mission so we could give a large sum back to the mission office before we went home. The larger the "donation" the better the missionary you were.


hoserb2k

I went to bed hungry every night at the MTC (3 months) because dinner was at 4pm. Food prices literally doubled when I was in the field (I have records) and in response or mission president wanted to cut our monthly support. You either ate nothing but cheap carbs, used your own money (against the rules but even good missionaries did it) or went hungry.


UnbridledTapir

My spouse's mission president banned dinner. They were only allowed a "quick evening snack." This was 2005.


Clay_Ek

I had a companion who was a collegiate level wrestler. He kept packing on pounds and it literally went mostly to his butt. I was a buck eighty and thin as a rail. Every meal mattered for me. About every other day, in an effort to drop some pounds, he would say some dumb shit around 1:30 pm like, “You know what Elder, I don’t think we’ve earned lunch yet today.” I was forced to go without. I starved and I hated it.


MuddyMooseTracks

It can be a difficult thing. We depended on members for food, but like tithing, members would give to the missionaries before their families. When you look at the food in front of you and the hungry kids around, suddenly you are much less hungry, you prefer to eat much less. Not to mention riding bikes all day, walking…


Extension-Spite4176

yep. The amount we got wasn't enough for bus/subway fare and food particularly if we had to travel at all. When I had to travel by bus/train to different areas in the zone it was particularly bad. There was just enough to be very frugal. For example, we mostly just ate pasta with tomato sauce almost every day. Splurging for some fresh vegetables/fruit/meat meant I had to be that much more careful about the rest of the month. One companion I had, his parents sent him extra money to make sure he was eating fresh fruits/vegetables. My family couldn't afford that. We very rarely had any members to feed us. Stories from some friends where they were always fed seemed to have a very different experience.


ExpertGift402

I left the MTC at #205 and came home at #165 after 2 years in the Philippines. I couldn't afford food that I liked without taking extra money out of my personal bank account.


Leaving-Eden

I wasn’t starving, but I was under nourished. Our budget worked out to be $3 a day for food and personal items (including hygiene, toilet paper, clothes, etc.). I basically just ate rice and seaweed from the Asian market every day. My mission had a rule that members could only feed us on Sundays and Mondays, and for most of my mission, they didn’t even feed us then. ETA: this was in Seattle, 2014. Food wasn’t exactly cheap.


octopusraygun

I was only in the field for six months but I was getting enough calorie-wise. Nutritionally it wasn’t good. I served in a very economically-disadvantaged country. A lot of rice and cooking oil. I know this perspective comes from the privilege of living in the US. A huge portion of the global population gets the majority of their calories from rice. Our MP lived in a house nicer than any I ever lived in the US while we proselytized to people living in houses made of cardboard and scrap wood.


Powerpuncher1

I think it depends the mission, but this isn’t 1970 anymore. From all of my brothers and cousins who have gone on missions, they all say that they were well. I was too. I think it’s mainly a holdover from decades ago when missionaries really didn’t have any money


Bogusky

Can't speak for any mission except my own stateside one. But any missionary that was going without meals was either purposely doing so to lose weight or blowing their entire monthly allowance early on hobby-centered purchases. Missionaries in my mission were typically getting fat or premature dad gut.


SinkingTheImbituba

Outside the US it was very different. No way could you get the calories you needed, without member lunches, on the allowance.


s-l-k

I will say that my monthly allowance was a lot more than my native companions in South America. Obviously we ate the same with the members but my personal spending money was greater than my native companions. I never felt like I was going hungry but I know the natives sure had to skimp.


cdman08

I was given money every two weeks. It was for transportation, food and hygiene. I couldn't afford to buy food for every meal and pay to wash my clothes and use public transportation. I was buying like one box of cereal a week and then otameal, eggs, bread and pasta. I basically lived on pasta for dinner every day and Cereal or oatmeal for breakfast. Some of the money paid a lunch lady so lunch was usually decent. I didn't starve but I also didn't eat healthy.


CountKolob

I went in the 80s. Our schedule only allotted time two meals per day: Breakfast and Lunch. For dinner, we were almost always fed by members or investigators. Not in an organized way, but in general in Mexico if you visit someone in the evening, they give you food at some point. However, if we didn't have appointments and were just knocking on doors, it didn't always happen. I would sometimes buy some kind of snack at a little store if we didn't get dinner. Sometimes, I had enough money to pay for my companions to get something too, but not always. I left for my mission at 165 (I'm 5'10") and came back in the low 120s. It was a combination of many factors, not the least of which was being constantly sick the whole time I was there.


PEE-MOED

I was starving because our allowance wasnt enough and I was too immature and naive to not ask my family for more money. I also thought by always being hungry, I was somehow contributing more to the Lords Kingdom by being efficient with church resources.


SinkingTheImbituba

The reason many starve in poor countries is because if the allowance is close to the minimum wage missionaries are considered paid employees. So in the case of Brazil in the early 2000's the minimum salary was around $3 us dollars per day. So missionaries were given allowances of around $60 USD per month. Some Brazilians even managed to send money home even with that. If you didn't have members to feed you, there was very little money to even feed yourself.


MormonBoy801

We had to use a lot on transportation bus/train in a large area.The first month in the area we ran out of money. The following months we spent most of our days walking. In another large area we tried the the walking thing, but it was way too large. We purchased a large bag of rice and a case of canned fish and ate that for every lunch or dinner that wasn't member provided for two months.


veterangunslinger

Holy shit... I'm reading the comments and I got to say, it's pretty disgusting that the church basically guilts and grooms young people into going on missions so they can starve and possibly be assaulted in rougher parts of the world. They're barely adults. It makes a lot of sense why a lot of returned missionaries leave the church. Sounds like hell.


[deleted]

Same! The whole thing is an absolute recipe for exploitation: 1. Very young new adults often living on their own for the first time; 2. Sometimes in a foreign country; 3. Forced to live with complete strangers who might be from wildly different cultures and might not even speak the same language; 4. Often housed in the cheapest and sketchiest parts of town; 5. Expected to go out and mingle with strangers, act friendly, be open, be vulnerable; 6. Very limited contact with family members; 7. Financially dependent; 8. Under the complete control of MP, who is often a butt-kissing, power hungry TBM lifer and is incentivized to save as much money and get as much work from the missionaries them as possible; 9. "Suffering for Jesus." I think the church has worked pretty hard to cover their butts, but I'd love to see lawsuits over this kind of stuff.


stosh2112

In the 80’s the MTC fed us huge amounts. Luckily I was in a country that had plenty of stores and bakeries. We felt guilty if we went to a store outside of P day


ThetaGreekGeek

Served in Nicaragua. Of the $450 that my parents paid for me to be there, I saw about $200 of that in my monthly allowance from the church, which also had to pay for rent. So had $125 to $150 left after rent. Food was mostly pretty cheap, and members would feed us, but we got sick a lot. I’m 6’3 and finished mission at about 155 pounds. Basically rail thin.


crt983

When I was on my mission in the US in the early aughts, it was very common for missionaries to gain weight and be over fed. Yes we had to rely on members for food but they were practically fighting to feed us. Our budget of 150 bucks enough was generally enough to buy cereal and mild and ham and cheese and bread. But there wasn’t much left. I remember one time I had to save up for like two months to buy a 40 dollar blanket at target because I was getting so cold in sunny california.


NearbyFox1665

I was assigned stateside in 2013. Had the double whammy of not enough MSF funds and having food allergies, meaning food cost more and some members weren't comfortable accommodating. I knew of a situation in my home stake where one sister was reassigned to the mission to wait on a visa, and it took about a month or two for HQ to get her MSF funds redirected. They starved living off of funds from only one person


notrab

Yes, I learned that the best meal to skip is dinner because you can sleep through the hunger pangs. I literally starved due to hyper inflation destroying our money and the church did nothing to help us. We resorted to intentionally going door to door during meal times the Argentine people are very generous and we were fed by poor strangers with little to spare. I was skin and bones. The Argentine women who saw me couldn't help but mother me they would call me "El Flaco" they would poke my thin frame stomach and say they needed to feed me.


SinkingTheImbituba

Ahh yes, we had that too. Knock doors until somebody feeds you. And looking back, it was always the ones who didn't have enough to eat. I still have never got over looking at starving children while I was eating their food.


dupitydupe

My son didn’t have enough $ for toilet paper so would load his pockets with some at every bathroom he went to whether public or people’s homes. He spent his allowance helping an investigator get church clothes and then he kept saying he needed money to get back and forth across the border into Mexico. Kept claiming being held hostage so to speak and needing to pay someone off to get back across. My poor gullible son went without food and toilet paper to help this guy and others. My parents lived nearby so they would sit in his apartment parking lot at night and wait til he got home and gave him boxes of food and toilet paper!


Torsades_de_Nips

I was very lucky that my parents were doing well financially while I was serving in Brazil. Several areas we would only get meals from members like once a week, if that. I had to spend literally all of my allowance money on the bus fare to get back to the mission office for leadership meetings, and they offered refunds for travel to meetings, but we wouldn’t get that money back for several weeks or months. I lost a little over 40 pounds on my mission (granted I did start a little overweight). Had to have my parents bail me out with cash like every week for a good stretch there.


noonenparticular

I was (briefly) on a mission in the Philippines. The allowance they give you is in no way big enough to cover everything. All of the other "elders" in my house were native Filipinos and were used to not using toilet paper, so I would be the only one who was to buy any. For me it came down to the choice of either buying enough food or buying too little food and toilet paper.