Do you see Mormon missions as cruel?

[Katzpur]

I worded my post poorly. I don't think what I meant to say is coming through the words. I should have stated "My experience in discussing missionary work with other non-christians..." and on to the rest. I'm under the impression that most people are fine with helping other cultures or even actively engaging in changing that culture unless those who doing so are Christians. I'm having a poor grammar (or is that mechanics) day.

Thanks for the clarification. Your remark really didn't sound like you!

 

[gnomon]

Thanks for the clarification. Your remark really didn't sound like you!

Yeah, I knew it was a bit confusing. Often when I start a response I end up deleting over half of what I type and lose the original sense of what I'm trying to state. Sometimes the back button on the browser can be my best friend.

 

[jonny]

I'm of the attitude that indigionous cultures shouldn't have missions sent to them - i've heard that those kind of missions often result in the missionaries offering food and supplies in exchange for conversion to whatever religion is being evangelised. This doesn't seem right to me, it seems like forced conversion and the destruction of a culture. That's the only cruelty i can imagine. What cruelty did the article have in mind?

I kind of agree with you. I think you'd find the history of the church in Western Africa to be interesting though. That is a case where the people there begged the church to send missionaries and actually setup their own renegade "LDS Churches" because they wanted membership in the church. The people there setup their own letter writing campaign to encourage the church to send missionaries. http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=1779

I don't see any point in baptising people into a church who are not converted to the church and committed to the gospel. This isn't a numbers game. The church went into Africa because there were people there who were committed and converted.

 

[Joe_Stampingbull]

its only cruel to the people who have to listen to them!

 

[Mustard Seed]

its only cruel to the people who have to listen to them!

Well, thank you for your intelligent response...

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I know of no other group of Christians who have so many missionaries, or who support them so well. A missionary from a rich Mormon family obviously needs no financial support, but may need as much in the way of support of his faith and strength to do a good job as any one else.

It is good to hear they have a low interest educational fund to help those that are returned from their mission... It must be hard to pick up the threads of their life again after such an experience... and many must come back with no Job, and are starting again.

 

[jonny]

I know of no other group of Christians who have so many missionaries, or who support them so well. A missionary from a rich Mormon family obviously needs no financial support, but may need as much in the way of support of his faith and strength to do a good job as any one else.

It is good to hear they have a low interest educational fund to help those that are returned from their mission... It must be hard to pick up the threads of their life again after such an experience... and many must come back with no Job, and are starting again.

I think the Perpetual Education Fund is a great program also. It was created in the spirit of the Perpetual Emmigration Fund, which helped pay for members of the LDS Church to immigrate from Europe to Utah in the 1800s. The program is primarily for students in developing countries - (Latin America, the Carribean, Southeast Africa, and the Philippines).

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,615154075,00.html

 

[Prometheus]

I can point out something cruel about LDS missions. First you stress a large amount of importance on family and marriage. Then you allow these young people only the scarcest of contact, if any at all, with their families and lovers when they are away.

Feeding the poor, helping the sick, bringing smiles to frowning faces and spreading a wonderful message of hope. Just what's up with that, eh? Some people have a lot of nerve.

You don't need religious dogma to do any of that.

 

[Katzpur]

I can point out something cruel about LDS missions. First you stress a large amount of importance on family and marriage. Then you allow these young people only the scarcest of contact, if any at all, with their families and lovers when they are away.

Missionaries are encouraged to be in frequent contact with their families and loved ones while they are away -- just not by phone. As for their "lovers," if they have left a "lover" behind, they probably shouldn't be on a mission anyway.

 

[Gentoo]

Missionaries are encouraged to be in frequent contact with their families and loved ones while they are away -- just not by phone.

Why not by phone, though?

 

[SoyLeche]

I can point out something cruel about LDS missions. First you stress a large amount of importance on family and marriage. Then you allow these young people only the scarcest of contact, if any at all, with their families and lovers when they are away.

What is it they say - absence makes the heart grow fonder? Most 19 year olds are leaving home anyway, and many of them don't contact their families much more then LDS missionaries do.

I know that I appreciated my family much more during and after my mission then I did before. And I would bet that if you looked at the data you'd find that those who had been missionaries tend to make better husbands and wives later on. I can't back that up though.

Why not by phone, though?

And, about the phone thing - letters are a much better form of communication then the telephone is. More thought is put into letters, they can be re-read, and the excitement that comes with receiving a letter can hardly be matched. Nowadays most missionaries are able to email - but I think that still isn't as good as snail-mail. Letter writing is a dying art.

Another reason letters are good is that they are not instantaneous. If you are having a tough day and can just call your mom and complain about it, many times that can compound the problem. If you write a letter though, you still get the benefit of getting things off your chest, and you know that your mom isn't going to find out about it for a few days. By the time she gets the letter, composes a response, sends it, and it gets to you, the crisis has probably been over for almost a week (if you are in the same country as her. In some cases it may be over for a month or more). So, there are multiple benefits here: you learn how to work through your problems on your own, not depending on your parents advice as much; your mom knows that by the time she gets the letter you've probably figured out the solution so she doesn't have to worry as much; you get to organize your thoughts in a way that the telephone just doesn't provide (you don't even have to send the letter after it's written); you learn language skills that you may not have learned otherwise; etc. The "instantaneous" factor is why I am not a big fan of missionaries using email - although they still only get to check their email once a week, so they probably won't get a response the same day they sent the email.

My grandma saved all of the letters I sent to her and gave them to me this last Christmas (and at home I have a folder with every letter that people sent me on my mission). Having them to read back through is a treasure that all of the phone calls in the world couldn't replace.

 

[SoyLeche]

The Church will never say "no" to someone who wants to go on a mission and can't afford it.

I think this is especially true for foreign missionaries. Can that missionary from the Dominican Republic really afford $500/month? Doubt it.

Nutshell - I know that you already know most, if not all, of this - but it's for the benefit of others

There is a lot of variance in how much a mission "costs". Pretty much every missionary from the US (and probably from Europe) pays about $400 per month (or thereabouts). I believe the money goes into a general fund that is then used for expenses on the mission. Every month when I was in Peru we went to the bank to withdraw our money. I'll do the numbers in "Soles" (the currency of Peru) because that is what I know. $1 = 3.5 Soles (approximately). We usually paid somewhere between 150 and 200 soles for rent, and we paid about 300 - 400 soles for "pension" (basically the "board" part of "room and board". In my mission we never cooked for ourselves, we gave someone the money at the beginning of the month and they bought and cooked our food. Usually they were able to cover most of the food for their entire families off of what we gave them). About 20 soles for bottled water. Then we got about 100 soles for personal use. So, if we add that up: I consumed about 450 - 500 soles (only half of the rent, pension and water would be allocated to me - the other half to my companion). Every so often my mom or grandma would send me a $20 bill in a letter (not a good idea to send cash through the mail to Peru, but I think I got most if not all of it). I was never hurting much for money.

So, I put in $400 = 1400 Soles, but I consumed about 500 Soles. The other 900 soles went to helping out some of the Peruvian missionaries who couldn't afford even the 500 soles per month (and, in general, much less was required of any Peruvian missionary). Some of it also probably went to subsidize missionaries in places like Europe where a typical missionary consumes more than $400 per month.

The church handles and distributes the money for missionaries, but it is money that has been donated specifically for that purpose (mostly by the parents of the missionaries themselves). That is mostly because you don't want the missionaries to be having to deal with large amounts of money at any one time. It's bad enough being in some neighborhoods wearing suits, but at least most of the muggers know that the missionaries don't have much that's worth stealing.

Someone mentioned before about missionaries looking like they need cars. That is entirely dependent on the area they are in. Some areas are "car areas", others "bike areas". It isn't a matter of whether or not the missionary can afford a car. Those who are in car areas also have pretty heavy restrictions on how many miles they can use in a month too, so they often try and find members in the area that can give them rides whenever possible. There were no "car areas" or "bike areas" in my mission. We either walked or forked out a few pennies to take a bus. (I lost about 60 lbs on my mission It's all back though).

 

[nutshell]

Thanks for the post Soy.

As another example, I was in Japan. I paid about $400 like everyone else. However, it cost $2,000+ for me to be there.

 

[Prometheus]

Missionaries are encouraged to be in frequent contact with their families and loved ones while they are away -- just not by phone. As for their "lovers," if they have left a "lover" behind, they probably shouldn't be on a mission anyway.

Lover, to me, means someone who loves. It has nothing to do with sex.

And, about the phone thing - letters are a much better form of communication then the telephone is.

That doesn't answer the question at all. It can be given that letters are better forms of communication but that does not answer why phones are discouraged. Why can't missionaries use any and all communication available to be in contact with their loved ones? Why can't missionaries talk to their family in real time instead of waiting for the postal system to run its course?

 

[nutshell]

That doesn't answer the question at all. It can be given that letters are better forms of communication but that does not answer why phones are discouraged. Why can't missionaries use any and all communication available to be in contact with their loved ones? Why can't missionaries talk to their family in real time instead of waiting for the postal system to run its course?

Because that's the rules. You don't have to understand it. If fact, you probably won't even if we make our best efforts to explain.

A person on his/her mission is dedicating every ounce of themselves to the service. Phone calls and real time conversations become distractions and lessen the experience. The most dedicated missionaries struggeled with phone calls. They did more out of respect for their mothers than for their own desire to make outside contact. When I was on my mission, I had a pay phone in my apartment that I could not call the states on (not every apartment had this - just the one I was in at the time). Mother's Day was coming up and that is a day we are allowed to talk on the phone. I gave my mom my phone number in a letter so she could call me on Mother's Day since I could not call out. About a week before Mother's Day, the phone rings and I answer it. It was silent for a minute, but then she called me by name. It was my mom. In that instant, everything I was doing was reduced to ashes. I was ripped out of the "spiritual high" if you will, and forced back in to the real world. Honestly, it was horrible. My mom knew right away it was a mistake and we quickly ended the call. It was followed up with a lovely conversation on Mother's Day where such a conversation was planned for.

I expect you'll use this example to try and further your argument that missions are cruel. And I, of course, disagree. I guess readers will have to decide whether they believe your outside interpretation or if they believe the person who has lived it.

 

[Prometheus]

Because that's the rules. You don't have to understand it. If fact, you probably won't even if we make our best efforts to explain.

I don't have to understand anything, but I seek to regardless. If you can't make it clear with your best explanations then maybe you don't really have good reasons.

A person on his/her mission is dedicating every ounce of themselves to the service. Phone calls and real time conversations become distractions and lessen the experience.

Why are phone calls a distraction but letters are not? Letters take more time and effort than phone calls. Time and effort that could be spent studying your scriptures or praying.

In that instant, everything I was doing was reduced to ashes. I was ripped out of the "spiritual high" if you will, and forced back in to the real world. Honestly, it was horrible.

That the Holy Ghost would remove His presence from you for talking to your mother sounds very cruel to me. I guess it makes sense, though. Jesus said you should hate your family.

I expect you'll use this example to try and further your argument that missions are cruel. And I, of course, disagree. I guess readers will have to decide whether they believe your outside interpretation or if they believe the person who has lived it.

I believe you think these rules are beneficial. I don't believe you have any good reason to think this.

 

[SoyLeche]

That doesn't answer the question at all. It can be given that letters are better forms of communication but that does not answer why phones are discouraged. Why can't missionaries use any and all communication available to be in contact with their loved ones? Why can't missionaries talk to their family in real time instead of waiting for the postal system to run its course?

You want some more? Ok.

Nutshell mentioned the big one - taking the focus off of the mission.

Another big one is cost. It would have cost me a dollar per minute to call home. As we have already discussed, missionaries are on a pretty tight budget. Sure, a call from a missionary inside the US to a mother inside the US isn't all that expensive, but a call from Madagascar to the US - a bit more so. Why not just allow those who can do so less expensively then? Most likely because that wouldn't be fair - not only for the missionaries but for the families. The missionaries themselves probably wouldn't know or care, but 2 families in the same neighborhood, one with a child on a mission to Kansas and the other with a child on a mission to Ukraine. One family get's weekly calls, the other can only afford 3 calls per year. Not to mention the Peruvian families that are barely able to put food on their tables. The American missionaries would probably be able to afford monthly calls, the Peruvian missionaries - not so much.

And then another - the mission IS NOT ABOUT building family relationships. You've had 20 years prior to this to do that, and you'll have the rest of your life to do so afterwards (and, as I've already said - I would bet that the family relationship after the mission is better than it would have been without the mission for most people). These 2 years are for something else entirely.

 

[SoyLeche]

Jesus said you should hate your family.

Actually, he said you shouldn't love your family more than you love him, which isn't at all what you said.

 

[SoyLeche]

Why are phone calls a distraction but letters are not? Letters take more time and effort than phone calls. Time and effort that could be spent studying your scriptures or praying.

You get more benefit per minute of writing a letter than you do making a phone call. After you get through punching in all the country codes, and then doing it again because you did it wrong the first time, it isn't really all that much more time to write a letter.

 

[SoyLeche]

That the Holy Ghost would remove His presence from you for talking to your mother sounds very cruel to me.

It's more that you would remove yourself from the Holy Ghost - losing focus and all that.