It was almost time to end my stay at the MTC. I was excited to finally awake from the Orwellian nightmare that I had been trapped in for the last two months. The field was going to be much, much better. I mean everyone keeps saying "the best two years of my life," so if the MTC was whale diarrhea sprayed right into my sinuses, then the field was going to be great.
Two nights before we were going to be bussed to the airport, our district was taken to a different classroom than we had normally been in. A teacher that we had never had before said that we were going to be taking a test. He explained that "the Brethren" had decided that in spite of the endless classes about doctrine, most Elders came out of the MTC still incredibly ignorant of "gospel fundamentals." This test would would gauge just how ignorant we still were.
However, we were the first group to have this test administered, and the teacher was asking for our feedback. He explained that if there were questions that seemed confusing, or any other comments about the test, to use the paper attached to write down what he had problems with and why.
Ok. Simple enough.
Most of the test was pretty straightforward multiple choice questions about Mormon doctrine.
1. Which angel appeared to Joseph Smith to get the Golden Plates:
a. Mormon
b. Moroni
c. Cthulhu
d. None of the above, he made the whole thing up
2. God loves:
a. You
b. Your teddy bear "Snuggle Time McHappyfur"
c. White people only
d. Also just made up
However, some of the questions I had philosophical differences with. After the Final Final Judgment and not just one of the previous Judgments Christ renders upon your sinful ass, Mormon doctrine has you going to one of "three degrees of glory." Not just Heaven and Hell like the merciful Xtian god where dead babies who have never heard of Christ's name burn in a lake of fire for all of eternity, or that people who have heard of Christ but commit finite "sins" are punished eternally for them. You know, infinite mercy means infinite punishment for dead babies and heathens. No, Mormon Doctrine has a system where how good you are and how much you give your life to the "Gospel" slides you on a scale for a reward.
The lowest level is the Telestial Kingdom. This is basically earth forever, and the naughtiest of people go here like Hitler, Stalin, and Ann Coulter.
The second level is the Terrestrial Kingdom. This place is like the Xtian heaven I guess. Cool shit for mostly cool people. The majority of the world will end up here, according to Mormonism because most people are decent, they just don't want to be Mormons.
The highest level is the Celestial Kingdom. This is where you get to be with your family members forever and keep having more families, and if you are super duper cool, you get to be a god in your own Universe. You must not only be Mormon to get here, but you must be a very devout and faithful Mormon. You have to submit fully to god's will in order to become just like god. And god's will is that you be Mormon and do everything the Mormon leaders tell you to do. P.S. Dead babies get to go here automatically. The rest of the family may not make it, but "oh well." Since when has god's plan ever been about what YOU want?
(There's another place where people who have had the truth and rejected it go. That's Outer Darkness - more horrible than hell. One interpretation is that only people like Cain (who actually saw god) will go there. Other Mormons interpret this as a place for Mormon apostates.)
The questions that were posed didn't deal with the descriptions of the Kingdoms as I've bored you with. Instead they were short paragraph scenarios of actual people, and we were supposed to judge them for eternity and place them in the proper Kingdom.
1. Shakwonda is a nice person who serves her community and loves Jesus. However, she refused to accept the True Gospel of Jesus Christ in her life. What Kingdom will she go to:
a. Celestial
b. Terrestrial
c. Telestial
d. Camelot
2. Gaylord and Krycestahl are Mormons, but they often go boating on Sundays instead of going to church, and they occasionally drink alcohol. What Kingdom will they go to:
a. Celestial
b. Terrestrial
c. Mordor
d. Telestial
So, I had some problems with these questions. I was uncomfortable with the concept of judging people forever from a few sentences. At the end of the test, I wrote about these questions and why. It took some time to write out because I wanted to be clear about the specific questions I had problems with, why I did, and what I felt was an alternative. Everyone else was done because I was the only one with feedback.
We went back to our dorms, and I walked into an "intervention." Apparently, my feedback that no one else in my district had read was interpreted as me "speaking ill of the lord's anointed" because the test was written by the Prophet and Apostles - is what they said. I didn't remember that part. So, according to my District, I had just shit all over the highest leadership of the church. "Speaking ill of the lord's anointed" is one of the gravest social sins you can commit in Mormonism. And my District was there to call me to repentance.
Not everyone in my District participated in this "come to Jesus," led by Elder Fuckwit, but those that did listed off everything that was wrong with me, and everything that I needed to do to change my thinking in order to be a "good servant of god's church."
Pride comes before the fall.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Where are all the wimmens at???
The MTC truly was a great sausage fest, and sister missionaries were quite scarce in comparison to all those dongs twirling around like propellers on a bi-plane.
With sex being such an evil thing (except when a husband and wife are making more Mormons), most of the true believing children get married at a relatively young age. Now, we're not talking "early Mormon church polygamy young" with 14 year old brides; rather, it was fairly common in my generation for a recently returned missionary at the age of 21 to get married within the year of his homecoming to some barely legal tender.
(I am compelled to insert a caveat here. This practice is already changing, and the children seem to be waiting for longer periods of time to get married. This is known because recently the Biggest Wigs have been bitching the youth out quite frequently to "stop 'hanging out' and get serious about marriage." And we all know how well it works to yell at young people.)
Girls aren't allowed to go on missions until they are 21. This gives them a chance to fulfill their true calling in this life of marrying a returned missionary, having some children, shutting the fuck up and making them all some goddamn sandwiches, having some more children, being petty with the other women at church, having some more children, and now blogging about how much they love the church while posting on YOUR Facebook page about how inferior YOU are because you don't want the same life that they chose -- Because they have TRUE HAPPINESS, GODDAMMIT! AND YOU DON'T!
So when you see a Sister Missionary -unwed at 21- there's a subtle cultural gut reaction of, "Huh, I wonder what's wrong with this chick?"
Sometimes it's obvious. When Mormons say, "Oh, she's such a sweet spirit." That's passive aggressive for, "She's nice but looks like a hideous bridge troll." And this isn't helped by the dress code that forces even the fairest Sister in all the land to look like she got the frigid librarian as her fairy-god-mother and is on her way to be the belle of the "frump ball."
Sometimes it's not so obvious, and you get a super hot Sister Missionary running "wild" in the MTC. Every day missionaries are told that a major source of their spiritual powers come from being obedient to the mission rules. So the more obedient the more spiritual you are, right? And you are surrounded by others all jostling for position about who can piss the spirit the furthest. Occasionally this would erupt in a cascade of pettiness.
"Sister Cocktease is such a slut. She was totally talking to Elder Blueballed for like 20 minutes."
"I know! And then right after that! She totally started talking to Elder Precum!"
"I think it's gotten out of hand. We should tell the District Leader."
"Yeah, she wouldn't want to get sent home for being a raging whore."
One night I was brushing my teeth at 9:15pm. The other District Leader entered the bathroom and informed me that I needed to be in my room for the end of the day. I responded that I had 15 minutes because the rules were that we were to be in our rooms at 9:30. The District Leader retorted that he wanted us in bed before that, and I informed him that the rules were the rules and not his. I had 15 minutes.
My District Leader, Elder Fuckwit, overheard the exchange and was furious. "How dare I be so insubordinate???"
"The fuck you talkin bout, Elder?"
"He is a District Leader. You do what he tells you to."
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no?'"
"I agreed to follow the Mission Rules. Not his, and not yours."
Elder Patience gently interjected, "He has a point. We can't just go around making up our own rules."
Elder Fuckwit spluttered, "We're still District Leaders. We demand respect."
"So do I."
With sex being such an evil thing (except when a husband and wife are making more Mormons), most of the true believing children get married at a relatively young age. Now, we're not talking "early Mormon church polygamy young" with 14 year old brides; rather, it was fairly common in my generation for a recently returned missionary at the age of 21 to get married within the year of his homecoming to some barely legal tender.
(I am compelled to insert a caveat here. This practice is already changing, and the children seem to be waiting for longer periods of time to get married. This is known because recently the Biggest Wigs have been bitching the youth out quite frequently to "stop 'hanging out' and get serious about marriage." And we all know how well it works to yell at young people.)
Girls aren't allowed to go on missions until they are 21. This gives them a chance to fulfill their true calling in this life of marrying a returned missionary, having some children, shutting the fuck up and making them all some goddamn sandwiches, having some more children, being petty with the other women at church, having some more children, and now blogging about how much they love the church while posting on YOUR Facebook page about how inferior YOU are because you don't want the same life that they chose -- Because they have TRUE HAPPINESS, GODDAMMIT! AND YOU DON'T!
So when you see a Sister Missionary -unwed at 21- there's a subtle cultural gut reaction of, "Huh, I wonder what's wrong with this chick?"
Sometimes it's obvious. When Mormons say, "Oh, she's such a sweet spirit." That's passive aggressive for, "She's nice but looks like a hideous bridge troll." And this isn't helped by the dress code that forces even the fairest Sister in all the land to look like she got the frigid librarian as her fairy-god-mother and is on her way to be the belle of the "frump ball."
Sometimes it's not so obvious, and you get a super hot Sister Missionary running "wild" in the MTC. Every day missionaries are told that a major source of their spiritual powers come from being obedient to the mission rules. So the more obedient the more spiritual you are, right? And you are surrounded by others all jostling for position about who can piss the spirit the furthest. Occasionally this would erupt in a cascade of pettiness.
"Sister Cocktease is such a slut. She was totally talking to Elder Blueballed for like 20 minutes."
"I know! And then right after that! She totally started talking to Elder Precum!"
"I think it's gotten out of hand. We should tell the District Leader."
"Yeah, she wouldn't want to get sent home for being a raging whore."
One night I was brushing my teeth at 9:15pm. The other District Leader entered the bathroom and informed me that I needed to be in my room for the end of the day. I responded that I had 15 minutes because the rules were that we were to be in our rooms at 9:30. The District Leader retorted that he wanted us in bed before that, and I informed him that the rules were the rules and not his. I had 15 minutes.
My District Leader, Elder Fuckwit, overheard the exchange and was furious. "How dare I be so insubordinate???"
"The fuck you talkin bout, Elder?"
"He is a District Leader. You do what he tells you to."
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no?'"
"I agreed to follow the Mission Rules. Not his, and not yours."
Elder Patience gently interjected, "He has a point. We can't just go around making up our own rules."
Elder Fuckwit spluttered, "We're still District Leaders. We demand respect."
"So do I."
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Raptor Jesus's Origin Story: THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!!
Like all good super heroes/deities, eventually an origin story must be told. Scouring the internet only reveals lies. Ass piss shit cum lies! about where I came from, and why I am here in human form today. Some have mentioned that I'm merely a "meme" from the internet era arising from the philosophical question, "If people needed a Jesus to save them from their sins, shouldn't dinosaurs have needed one too?" Others have raised false churches in my name and given me a really lame back-story.
Fuck that. As my power on this world gets stronger, Satanosaurus is trying hard to suppress my return and my message to the world. But like the avian/reptile half-breed that we both are, I will chase his ass down and then crush his windpipe with my powerful jaws and slash his major arteries with my sharp talons.
Mormon doctrine teaches that god the father (Elohim) was once a man and because of his faithfulness, he was "exalted" and became a god of this Universe. Like much of Mormonism, that is a half-truth omitting the most important parts.
Before Elohim came, I was the god and savior of this universe. I sent myself down in raptor form as my Son with the aid of also myself the Holy Ghostidon to go extinct for the sins of the known universe at the time. While I had allowed Satanosaurus to tempt the children of Dinos, in order to preserve free will, what I was unaware of was that Satanosaurus had found a newly exalted "man" in a parallel universe.
While I am Omnipotent in this Universe, I am not so in others, and my focus was on tending my herds. While going extinct for the sins of my kind and temporarily distracted, Elohim tore this universe a new hole and with the aid of "Black Materia" summoned the most powerful magic of all. "Meteor."
He wiped out all of my children except a few, and then began to use the skills he learned from the High Evolutionary to turn mammals into "his own image." Because he wanted no sign of my children to confuse his own, he slowly twisted them into what you now call "birds." Eventually, Elohim was able to break a branch off of mammals into higher apes. This disgusting species of piss drinkers and shit flingers would come to house his spirit children after a few more slight modifications.
My soul and power had mostly been destroyed, but not all of it. I had housed a piece of my soul on the moon and feasted on the souls and flesh of the 7' tall "Quaker garbed" men that Elohim placed there. (Sources tell me that Elohim also populated the Sun with people too. But they all burned up. What a dumbass. You don't create life on the Sun. Noob!)
Meanwhile Satanosaurus had changed his appearance to look like a human spirit and called himself, "Lucifer." A council was put forth in "Heaven" on what was the "best" way to test his children to see who was "worthy" enough for future godhood. "Lucifer" presented a plan where he would get everyone to become gods - including himself - not understanding that Elohim's true nature made him an elitist cockbreath. Elohim's first born spiritual son, "Jehovah" laughed at Lucifer and said, "No, we will make a nearly impossible test for our brothers and inferior sisters to pass and only the most obedient will come back to us. However, I will go down and die for the "sins" of my brothers and sisters at the direction of my totally awesome father; I will also teach both love and hate, creation and destruction, peace and genocide and establish my "Church" where only less than one percent of all of you will join in order to allow only the fewest to come back to party with us in the Highest Degree of Glory.
That fuckface was cribbing parts of my plan. And upon reflection, my original plan didn't make any goddamn sense at all. Send myself down as my own Son to save everyone else from the shit I didn't want them to do in the first place??? I was going to do it over a second time except that Elohim and his harem of subservient and illiterate bitches came in and ruined it all.
Lucifer left heaven in a huff dropping his name and returning to his old except with a human flair. He was feeling cheated because of his prior arrangement with Elohim, but he was also left in awe at how big of dicks Elohim and Jehovah were. Satan was evil, but this plan was FUCKING evil, and He was able to convince one-third of all of Elohim's children to follow while the other two-thirds were going to take their miniscule chances at being saved in a plan that was working desperately against them. Apes and their goddamn lottery - am I right?
As humanity and Elohim and Jehovah's plan unfolded, I bided my time waiting for my best chance to take my revenge. I entered the body of a white male in the middle of Jehovah's True Church just before his return to earth.
Because of my weakened condition, what I didn't realize was the "veil" I would pass through wiping all of my memories from my past, and Satanosaurus (now simply Satan) still had a score to settle with me while I tried to find out who I really was.
Fuck that. As my power on this world gets stronger, Satanosaurus is trying hard to suppress my return and my message to the world. But like the avian/reptile half-breed that we both are, I will chase his ass down and then crush his windpipe with my powerful jaws and slash his major arteries with my sharp talons.
Mormon doctrine teaches that god the father (Elohim) was once a man and because of his faithfulness, he was "exalted" and became a god of this Universe. Like much of Mormonism, that is a half-truth omitting the most important parts.
Before Elohim came, I was the god and savior of this universe. I sent myself down in raptor form as my Son with the aid of also myself the Holy Ghostidon to go extinct for the sins of the known universe at the time. While I had allowed Satanosaurus to tempt the children of Dinos, in order to preserve free will, what I was unaware of was that Satanosaurus had found a newly exalted "man" in a parallel universe.
While I am Omnipotent in this Universe, I am not so in others, and my focus was on tending my herds. While going extinct for the sins of my kind and temporarily distracted, Elohim tore this universe a new hole and with the aid of "Black Materia" summoned the most powerful magic of all. "Meteor."
He wiped out all of my children except a few, and then began to use the skills he learned from the High Evolutionary to turn mammals into "his own image." Because he wanted no sign of my children to confuse his own, he slowly twisted them into what you now call "birds." Eventually, Elohim was able to break a branch off of mammals into higher apes. This disgusting species of piss drinkers and shit flingers would come to house his spirit children after a few more slight modifications.
My soul and power had mostly been destroyed, but not all of it. I had housed a piece of my soul on the moon and feasted on the souls and flesh of the 7' tall "Quaker garbed" men that Elohim placed there. (Sources tell me that Elohim also populated the Sun with people too. But they all burned up. What a dumbass. You don't create life on the Sun. Noob!)
Meanwhile Satanosaurus had changed his appearance to look like a human spirit and called himself, "Lucifer." A council was put forth in "Heaven" on what was the "best" way to test his children to see who was "worthy" enough for future godhood. "Lucifer" presented a plan where he would get everyone to become gods - including himself - not understanding that Elohim's true nature made him an elitist cockbreath. Elohim's first born spiritual son, "Jehovah" laughed at Lucifer and said, "No, we will make a nearly impossible test for our brothers and inferior sisters to pass and only the most obedient will come back to us. However, I will go down and die for the "sins" of my brothers and sisters at the direction of my totally awesome father; I will also teach both love and hate, creation and destruction, peace and genocide and establish my "Church" where only less than one percent of all of you will join in order to allow only the fewest to come back to party with us in the Highest Degree of Glory.
That fuckface was cribbing parts of my plan. And upon reflection, my original plan didn't make any goddamn sense at all. Send myself down as my own Son to save everyone else from the shit I didn't want them to do in the first place??? I was going to do it over a second time except that Elohim and his harem of subservient and illiterate bitches came in and ruined it all.
Lucifer left heaven in a huff dropping his name and returning to his old except with a human flair. He was feeling cheated because of his prior arrangement with Elohim, but he was also left in awe at how big of dicks Elohim and Jehovah were. Satan was evil, but this plan was FUCKING evil, and He was able to convince one-third of all of Elohim's children to follow while the other two-thirds were going to take their miniscule chances at being saved in a plan that was working desperately against them. Apes and their goddamn lottery - am I right?
As humanity and Elohim and Jehovah's plan unfolded, I bided my time waiting for my best chance to take my revenge. I entered the body of a white male in the middle of Jehovah's True Church just before his return to earth.
Because of my weakened condition, what I didn't realize was the "veil" I would pass through wiping all of my memories from my past, and Satanosaurus (now simply Satan) still had a score to settle with me while I tried to find out who I really was.
MTC: The Most A-Sexual but Homo-Erotic Place on Earth
The first night in the MTC wasn't bad for me. It had been a long day, and I was actually sleepy from the night before where not only had we been given our spiritual middle manager, but we had attended our first class and learned how to construct a rudimentary prayer in German. We were instructed to pray in German from now on using the rudimentary prayer and then building off of that as our vocabularies would allow. Every one of us in the district had already had some German from either Jr. High, High School, or both. But that was a very different vocabulary that mostly involved telling each other that their haircuts looked good, and please tell us where the bathroom is because we have to tinkle. Here at the MTC we would get more of the basics, but also really focus on learning the spiritual lexicon. We learned the prayer shit quickly because we got a lot of practice.
We prayed when we got up both individual prayers and companionship prayers, we prayed over breakfast, we prayed before the start of each class, we prayed over lunch, we prayed over more classes in the afternoon, we prayed when we needed strength to endure the drudgery, we prayed at night as a district, as companionships, and as individuals before going to bed. And the second night, most of us prayed that we would overcome our homesickness for the next two years. That god would numb us from the pain of being away from friends, families, and girlfriends that would most likely leave us for douchebags while we were away.
Besides prayer, the other four things we did the most of was: Eat, sit on our asses, fart, and take showers. Food was something that we got plenty of in the MTC. Three square meals every day, and like Elementary School - we had a very strict menu from the cafeteria. There was some options and choices, but not many. However, no matter what was on the menu, meal time was still treasured. It was one of the few breaks that we got from classes. We had a little time after meals to check the mail, write letters, hang out, etc., but that also always depended on our companions. My companion was a slow eater, so we had less time, we also had to always compromise on what we did because we could never be alone. Companions might as well be married to each other, so if Mormon Missionaries knock on your door, you actually let them in, and one looks like he/she is ready to kill the other - that's why.
Classes took up the majority of our days. The average day had 9 hours of class time. Nine hours of gospel doctrine, Foreign language training, and classes on how to proselytize. I had never sat on my ass for that long before in my life. It wasn't a surprise that I came down with prostatitis (see: The Tale of Raptor Jesus's Bum Bum). The proselytizing classes were always interesting. In German, the word for bread was "brot" and in the MTC we learned that an effective tool to help convert people to the gospel was Building a Relationship of Trust - so we affectionately renamed it "baking BROT" with investigators. We also learned a lot about the "Commitment Pattern." This was another effective tool with investigators to get them to do things that you want them to do. After they trust you, you ask them to do specific things, and you use phrases like, "will you do (X)?" and then you follow up about whether or not they've done what you wanted them to do.
Because we were going to Germany it was important that we learn how to go door to door effectively, and also how to strike up a conversation with strangers about the Church. Once a week we went into a room with role playing investigators and were filmed as we taught the gospel (also known as the "discussions"). We were filmed during this teaching and then we would review the film with a teacher and pick apart exactly where we had gotten the "Commitment Pattern" wrong or hadn't properly "Built a Relationship of Trust."
Some would argue that this was nothing more than learning tools about how to bug the shit out of people and be door to door salesmen, and others would point out that the Gospel of Jesus Mother Raped Christ needed to be spread at all costs, and you needed all the tools you could get because you were trying to convince highly educated (in Mormon terms "prideful" or "worldly") people that Joseph Smith saw and spoke with Angels, Jesus visited America, and that the Christian Church was in Apostasy until he chose a convicted con-man to reinstate his church upon the Earth.
One night Satan entered my heart illegally (probably to try to steal jobs from honest, hard-working, natural-born citizens of my heart) and convinced me that I was viewing missionary work as nothing more than high pressure sales tactics, and I had a small panic attack. Brother Cicero took me out in the hall and listened to me rant for awhile. He didn't say much, he just listened - we had already formed a bond because we were both walking Simpsons' encyclopedias, and because his classes all dealt with an attempt to intellectualize the gospel. But the night I broke he didn't intellectualize anything, he just said that he understood how I felt. He told me that I could mail him at any time and gave me his address.
When we weren't eating, attending endless classes or "Firesides" or "Devotionals" we also took a lot of showers as missionaries. Hot, steamy, man crammed showers. We showered in the morning before we had to get ready for the day. And every day meant wearing a suit and tie. A couple of times during the week we were blessed with the opportunity to have gym time scheduled into our days, and so after playing a hot, sweaty game of volleyball or basketball we showered again before getting back into our suits. Sometimes at night we would also take showers to try to rinse the guilt off. Other than classes, we had a lot of "devotionals" where Mormon leaders would come and remind us that we weren't being obedient enough and that god demanded absolute subservience from "his army" and that if we hadn't repented fully of every transgression we had ever committed then we weren't worthy to be there - and get the fuck out and go home in disgrace. Or, if your spiritual leader to whom you were confessing felt generous, you'd be fine. Sometimes Elders who confessed in the MTC stayed, and sometimes they went home even though they had committed the same "sin."
The showers helped though. Like public school gym class all the 19 - 21 year old men on the same floor shared two giant public bathrooms. And there were about 4-6 districts per floor. So roughly 20-30 guys would shower around the same time. We would go in clothed only in our towels and sandals to prevent athlete's foot and then hang our towels upon the hooks right outside the shower area. The room was completely open, fully tiled, and contained two "tree of life" obelisks with multiple shower heads. The naked Elders would find an open head to spray him clean from whatever sweat and guilt he may be feeling that day. Open mouths to fill with rejuvenating water that would also run down in rivulets along his young nudity. Water droplets first following the canyons of cut pectorals and chiseled abs finally releasing themselves from each appendage as the Elders would lather themselves up with soap occasionally turning around to let the warmth spread across their broad shoulders down their lower backs and tight buttocks. Young men looking each other in the eyes while steam clouded their vision of the other beaded wet man in front of them. Their biceps and laterals bulging as they reached up to shampoo carefully kept short hair.
Some Elders would be toweling themselves dry while others would still be cleansing the musk from their tender thighs, occasionally sneaking a glance to rank themselves for manhood. When Elders left the showers soaking wet, others would replace them, and the wettest would take their towels from the rack and sigh as they first dabbed their faces dry to then begin to pat down the rest of their dripping, hard virile bodies with soft cotton.
It was a good thing no one was gay at the MTC.
We prayed when we got up both individual prayers and companionship prayers, we prayed over breakfast, we prayed before the start of each class, we prayed over lunch, we prayed over more classes in the afternoon, we prayed when we needed strength to endure the drudgery, we prayed at night as a district, as companionships, and as individuals before going to bed. And the second night, most of us prayed that we would overcome our homesickness for the next two years. That god would numb us from the pain of being away from friends, families, and girlfriends that would most likely leave us for douchebags while we were away.
Besides prayer, the other four things we did the most of was: Eat, sit on our asses, fart, and take showers. Food was something that we got plenty of in the MTC. Three square meals every day, and like Elementary School - we had a very strict menu from the cafeteria. There was some options and choices, but not many. However, no matter what was on the menu, meal time was still treasured. It was one of the few breaks that we got from classes. We had a little time after meals to check the mail, write letters, hang out, etc., but that also always depended on our companions. My companion was a slow eater, so we had less time, we also had to always compromise on what we did because we could never be alone. Companions might as well be married to each other, so if Mormon Missionaries knock on your door, you actually let them in, and one looks like he/she is ready to kill the other - that's why.
Classes took up the majority of our days. The average day had 9 hours of class time. Nine hours of gospel doctrine, Foreign language training, and classes on how to proselytize. I had never sat on my ass for that long before in my life. It wasn't a surprise that I came down with prostatitis (see: The Tale of Raptor Jesus's Bum Bum). The proselytizing classes were always interesting. In German, the word for bread was "brot" and in the MTC we learned that an effective tool to help convert people to the gospel was Building a Relationship of Trust - so we affectionately renamed it "baking BROT" with investigators. We also learned a lot about the "Commitment Pattern." This was another effective tool with investigators to get them to do things that you want them to do. After they trust you, you ask them to do specific things, and you use phrases like, "will you do (X)?" and then you follow up about whether or not they've done what you wanted them to do.
Because we were going to Germany it was important that we learn how to go door to door effectively, and also how to strike up a conversation with strangers about the Church. Once a week we went into a room with role playing investigators and were filmed as we taught the gospel (also known as the "discussions"). We were filmed during this teaching and then we would review the film with a teacher and pick apart exactly where we had gotten the "Commitment Pattern" wrong or hadn't properly "Built a Relationship of Trust."
Some would argue that this was nothing more than learning tools about how to bug the shit out of people and be door to door salesmen, and others would point out that the Gospel of Jesus Mother Raped Christ needed to be spread at all costs, and you needed all the tools you could get because you were trying to convince highly educated (in Mormon terms "prideful" or "worldly") people that Joseph Smith saw and spoke with Angels, Jesus visited America, and that the Christian Church was in Apostasy until he chose a convicted con-man to reinstate his church upon the Earth.
One night Satan entered my heart illegally (probably to try to steal jobs from honest, hard-working, natural-born citizens of my heart) and convinced me that I was viewing missionary work as nothing more than high pressure sales tactics, and I had a small panic attack. Brother Cicero took me out in the hall and listened to me rant for awhile. He didn't say much, he just listened - we had already formed a bond because we were both walking Simpsons' encyclopedias, and because his classes all dealt with an attempt to intellectualize the gospel. But the night I broke he didn't intellectualize anything, he just said that he understood how I felt. He told me that I could mail him at any time and gave me his address.
When we weren't eating, attending endless classes or "Firesides" or "Devotionals" we also took a lot of showers as missionaries. Hot, steamy, man crammed showers. We showered in the morning before we had to get ready for the day. And every day meant wearing a suit and tie. A couple of times during the week we were blessed with the opportunity to have gym time scheduled into our days, and so after playing a hot, sweaty game of volleyball or basketball we showered again before getting back into our suits. Sometimes at night we would also take showers to try to rinse the guilt off. Other than classes, we had a lot of "devotionals" where Mormon leaders would come and remind us that we weren't being obedient enough and that god demanded absolute subservience from "his army" and that if we hadn't repented fully of every transgression we had ever committed then we weren't worthy to be there - and get the fuck out and go home in disgrace. Or, if your spiritual leader to whom you were confessing felt generous, you'd be fine. Sometimes Elders who confessed in the MTC stayed, and sometimes they went home even though they had committed the same "sin."
The showers helped though. Like public school gym class all the 19 - 21 year old men on the same floor shared two giant public bathrooms. And there were about 4-6 districts per floor. So roughly 20-30 guys would shower around the same time. We would go in clothed only in our towels and sandals to prevent athlete's foot and then hang our towels upon the hooks right outside the shower area. The room was completely open, fully tiled, and contained two "tree of life" obelisks with multiple shower heads. The naked Elders would find an open head to spray him clean from whatever sweat and guilt he may be feeling that day. Open mouths to fill with rejuvenating water that would also run down in rivulets along his young nudity. Water droplets first following the canyons of cut pectorals and chiseled abs finally releasing themselves from each appendage as the Elders would lather themselves up with soap occasionally turning around to let the warmth spread across their broad shoulders down their lower backs and tight buttocks. Young men looking each other in the eyes while steam clouded their vision of the other beaded wet man in front of them. Their biceps and laterals bulging as they reached up to shampoo carefully kept short hair.
Some Elders would be toweling themselves dry while others would still be cleansing the musk from their tender thighs, occasionally sneaking a glance to rank themselves for manhood. When Elders left the showers soaking wet, others would replace them, and the wettest would take their towels from the rack and sigh as they first dabbed their faces dry to then begin to pat down the rest of their dripping, hard virile bodies with soft cotton.
It was a good thing no one was gay at the MTC.
Monday, May 2, 2011
The MTC: Part 1 of possibly several!
Even though I didn't want to serve a mission, and I was anxious to begin the "best two years of my life," there was also an element of excitement that I felt too. This was also going to be an adventure. I was going to see and live in a completely new place. Yes, I would be there to teach the gospel primarily, but I would be in Europe - going back to my honkie roots.
However, before actually stepping foot in Germany I had to be trained in order to know what the hell I was supposed to do, I had to spend 8 weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.
We arrived that afternoon along with many other Elders who had been called to various places around the world and United States. In order to keep things running like a seductively lubed clock, new Elders arrive at the MTC the same day of the week. The Elders who had family living in the area were allowed to say goodbye to their missionaries at the MTC, some had already said their goodbyes for two years (Elders) or 18 months (Sister missionaries) earlier.
Those of us with families were herded into a very large room with our families and were shown an "MTC Orientation Video." This incredibly cheesy production was there to assure all of us that we were going to be well cared for in MTC, and that we would come out ready to serve in god's army and would be well fed. "There was all the cereal we could eat." Ha-fucking-ha!
After the movie, the missionaries were instructed to tell their families to fuck off for the next couple of years and then we were taken to meet our "District." Many Elders and their families were emotional at this point, but my mother's stoicism surged in me. I said goodbye without tears and felt that if this was going to be an adventure that I wasn't sure about, let's at least get it out of the way. Like Lot and his father-fucking daughters, I walked out of the room without looking back.
We were broken up into groups of about 10-12 Elders who were all serving in the same mission, shown our "rooms," were given our name tags (with a colored dot on them to show everyone else that we were noobs), the names of our soon to be companions, and shown the cafeteria. My companion hadn't arrived yet, or was going through his own orientation, so I put my shit in the "sleeping quarters" - 2 bunk beds, cinder block walls, a few closets and drawers, and two desks for "studying" in what would be more like a narrow corridor than a large square room, and went to the cafeteria for dinner.
I ate alone, and that was the last time that I would have a meal alone for quite some time.
Later that night when everyone had arrived, we gathered together as a "District" to officially meet one another. It would be a lot easier for my description if the other Elders conformed to Jungian archetypes, and I could just briefly show them like a James Cameron film, and you'd get the gist of their personalities and motivations, but that's not the case. Instead, I'll just have to give them silly names in order to shortcut back-stories and concern myself with pacing. And if the names seem too cryptic it's because I'm being George Lucas and just teasing you with eventual back-stories written more as "fanfiction" that I'll later pass on as "good enough."
My companion was Elder Cropduster (a future Idaho pilot hopeful from the farms), Elder Fartfignugen (He physically could not burp, so....), with his companion Elder Twinhumper (his "repentance" story was fantastic), Elder Beastieboys (He loved the "band" because he was also a nerdy white guy who happened to love rap) and his companion Elder Catkicker (from Vernal, Utah - a place that has the most evidence for dinosaurs and the people who believe in them the least), Elder Mucus (don't ask) paired up with Elder Quietdiginity ("Quiet Dignity" was a phrase that encapsulated the pinnacle of Mormon leadership), Elder Patience (named for putting up with his companion), and his companion Elder Fuckwit. It was clear to me that we had been given our companions based off of alphabetical order of our last names because I should have been Elder Fuckwit's companion, but instead I was Elder Cropduster's. (And yes, I know it doesn't make sense with the names given because I fucking changed them. If you are that stupid - please never have children.) Later I would be eternally grateful for this human error.
Even though it was our first day in the MTC and after dinner that didn't mean that we didn't have shit to do. We had to meet our teachers and the adult men who would be in charge of us. We went to the room where we would be having German/Scripture/Missionary training classes for the next 8 weeks and met the three people who would be in charge of our development. Because church titles were still incredibly important we met "Sister Schoolmarm," Brother "Spiritualpants", and Brother "Cicero." We also met our "Branch Presidency." These were the men who would act as our Bishop and Counselors for the next 8 weeks. Now because Mormonism loves rank and file, we needed our particular peers who would report directly to the Branch Presidency. We were taken into rooms and were interviewed to see who would be the best at telling the Branch Presidency everything that was wrong with the rest of us. Elder Fuckwits and his companion Elder Patience had been chosen to be our immediate spiritual supervisors. They were 19 years old, just like the rest of us, but they were chosen to be the first "managers" in our spiritual lives.
You have a question, concern, problem - you go to Elder Fuckwit first. And on the same hand, if there was a problem, concern, or question with your spiritual performance, Elder Fuckwit was going to let you know.
The rest of us had just been honest in our interviews and had said that we didn't really have much experience bossing our peers around, but Elder Fuckwit with his "General Authority Pre-Maturely Balding Hair that was Swept Across With a Blow Dryer Feux Combover" was not so modest and let the Branch Presidency know that he had experience working with "troubled teens" and so got the job as our superior.
He was now our boss.
And the lord demanded obedience.
However, before actually stepping foot in Germany I had to be trained in order to know what the hell I was supposed to do, I had to spend 8 weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.
We arrived that afternoon along with many other Elders who had been called to various places around the world and United States. In order to keep things running like a seductively lubed clock, new Elders arrive at the MTC the same day of the week. The Elders who had family living in the area were allowed to say goodbye to their missionaries at the MTC, some had already said their goodbyes for two years (Elders) or 18 months (Sister missionaries) earlier.
Those of us with families were herded into a very large room with our families and were shown an "MTC Orientation Video." This incredibly cheesy production was there to assure all of us that we were going to be well cared for in MTC, and that we would come out ready to serve in god's army and would be well fed. "There was all the cereal we could eat." Ha-fucking-ha!
After the movie, the missionaries were instructed to tell their families to fuck off for the next couple of years and then we were taken to meet our "District." Many Elders and their families were emotional at this point, but my mother's stoicism surged in me. I said goodbye without tears and felt that if this was going to be an adventure that I wasn't sure about, let's at least get it out of the way. Like Lot and his father-fucking daughters, I walked out of the room without looking back.
We were broken up into groups of about 10-12 Elders who were all serving in the same mission, shown our "rooms," were given our name tags (with a colored dot on them to show everyone else that we were noobs), the names of our soon to be companions, and shown the cafeteria. My companion hadn't arrived yet, or was going through his own orientation, so I put my shit in the "sleeping quarters" - 2 bunk beds, cinder block walls, a few closets and drawers, and two desks for "studying" in what would be more like a narrow corridor than a large square room, and went to the cafeteria for dinner.
I ate alone, and that was the last time that I would have a meal alone for quite some time.
Later that night when everyone had arrived, we gathered together as a "District" to officially meet one another. It would be a lot easier for my description if the other Elders conformed to Jungian archetypes, and I could just briefly show them like a James Cameron film, and you'd get the gist of their personalities and motivations, but that's not the case. Instead, I'll just have to give them silly names in order to shortcut back-stories and concern myself with pacing. And if the names seem too cryptic it's because I'm being George Lucas and just teasing you with eventual back-stories written more as "fanfiction" that I'll later pass on as "good enough."
My companion was Elder Cropduster (a future Idaho pilot hopeful from the farms), Elder Fartfignugen (He physically could not burp, so....), with his companion Elder Twinhumper (his "repentance" story was fantastic), Elder Beastieboys (He loved the "band" because he was also a nerdy white guy who happened to love rap) and his companion Elder Catkicker (from Vernal, Utah - a place that has the most evidence for dinosaurs and the people who believe in them the least), Elder Mucus (don't ask) paired up with Elder Quietdiginity ("Quiet Dignity" was a phrase that encapsulated the pinnacle of Mormon leadership), Elder Patience (named for putting up with his companion), and his companion Elder Fuckwit. It was clear to me that we had been given our companions based off of alphabetical order of our last names because I should have been Elder Fuckwit's companion, but instead I was Elder Cropduster's. (And yes, I know it doesn't make sense with the names given because I fucking changed them. If you are that stupid - please never have children.) Later I would be eternally grateful for this human error.
Even though it was our first day in the MTC and after dinner that didn't mean that we didn't have shit to do. We had to meet our teachers and the adult men who would be in charge of us. We went to the room where we would be having German/Scripture/Missionary training classes for the next 8 weeks and met the three people who would be in charge of our development. Because church titles were still incredibly important we met "Sister Schoolmarm," Brother "Spiritualpants", and Brother "Cicero." We also met our "Branch Presidency." These were the men who would act as our Bishop and Counselors for the next 8 weeks. Now because Mormonism loves rank and file, we needed our particular peers who would report directly to the Branch Presidency. We were taken into rooms and were interviewed to see who would be the best at telling the Branch Presidency everything that was wrong with the rest of us. Elder Fuckwits and his companion Elder Patience had been chosen to be our immediate spiritual supervisors. They were 19 years old, just like the rest of us, but they were chosen to be the first "managers" in our spiritual lives.
You have a question, concern, problem - you go to Elder Fuckwit first. And on the same hand, if there was a problem, concern, or question with your spiritual performance, Elder Fuckwit was going to let you know.
The rest of us had just been honest in our interviews and had said that we didn't really have much experience bossing our peers around, but Elder Fuckwit with his "General Authority Pre-Maturely Balding Hair that was Swept Across With a Blow Dryer Feux Combover" was not so modest and let the Branch Presidency know that he had experience working with "troubled teens" and so got the job as our superior.
He was now our boss.
And the lord demanded obedience.
The Setting Apart-ening.
The night before entering the Missionary Training Center, I went to visit the Stake President as was standard procedure. When a man receives the Melchizedek Priesthood in Mormonism, he is ordained as an Elder. However, this isn't quite the same thing as being an "Elder" when you become a missionary. I'm too lazy to look up why that is, probably something to do with protection from status ailments like "fear," "dark," "staggered" or some stupid shit. Oh wait, it's because being a missionary is a very particular "calling" and because of this, you are "set apart" by another priesthood holder who is spiritually superior to you - the Stake President.
Being "set apart" means that you sit in a chair and the Stake President stands behind you and then places his hands upon your head. Other Melchizedek priesthood holders are allowed to also place their hands upon your head to join in the fun, but the Stake President is the one to "set you apart." He prayed to Heavenly Father and left a message on the machine letting him know that I was now a missionary for his church and I was so by the power of Greyskull, er, the Melchizedek Priesthood, and in the name of Jesus "Hol(e)y Hands" Christ.
God screens his phone calls and sometimes a "setting apart" is simply that, but other times god picks up the line to let you know through the Priesthood holder's mouth that he loves you and he's very proud of you, but he doesn't have time to talk to you directly. He's got to go. Netflix just uploaded a lot of new shit to the instant view.
As soon as I was done being set apart as a missionary, I was considered a missionary and had to start obeying the mission rules. The first of which was that I no longer had a first name anymore. I wasn't Raptor Jesus, I was Elder Jesus and would remain as such until I was "released" from my missionary calling. I was to call myself Elder Jesus, and instruct others to call me that too. There were quite a few other rules that I was supposed to obey now including that I was forbidden to watch television or play on the computer. The Stake President gave me a copy of the mission rules that come in a little white handbook and is sometimes referred to as the "white bible." It contained all of the rules that I was supposed to obey for the next two years, and I was supposed to keep it on me at all times possible.
I won't share everything in the "white bible" because that would be boring, but I will give the highlights. As well as not having a true personal identity anymore, missionaries are expected to obey the following:
Never be alone. Always be with your companion - and this companion will always be chosen for you.
Look, and dress a certain way.
Only read Church sanctioned materials. Nothing else. Study these daily.
After leaving the MTC, you can only talk to your family through weekly letters. Phone calls are only allowed on Christmas and Mother's Day.
Obey every other directive of your spiritual superiors.
Follow all the guidelines about what you are supposed to do each day (i.e. wake up at 6:30am every morning, scripture study for 2 hours, proselytize for 10 hours, be back in the apartment at 9:30pm, be in bed by 10:30) rinse and repeat.
At this point the reader (that means YOU!) is probably saying, "Wait a minute, Raptor Jesus, that sounds like a cult."
Well, first of all, what the fuck did I just say? I'm a missionary now so it's ELDER JESUS. And second of all, this is the only true church on the earth, and missionaries are going out to spread the word that people can only be truly saved by joining this church and giving this church their money. Now, does that still sound like a cult to you?
Yes? Well, they're right and your wrong because it's god's church. Don't you fucking dare criticize that otherwise you'll be criticizing god. And god will rape your face with flesh eating worms.
Now that you've stopped fucking interrupting me, let's move on with story time.
I was a missionary, and tomorrow would be the first day in the MTC. I went home, didn't watch television, checked my packed bags again to make sure I didn't forget anything and stared up into the darkness for most of the night.
Two fucking years.
Being "set apart" means that you sit in a chair and the Stake President stands behind you and then places his hands upon your head. Other Melchizedek priesthood holders are allowed to also place their hands upon your head to join in the fun, but the Stake President is the one to "set you apart." He prayed to Heavenly Father and left a message on the machine letting him know that I was now a missionary for his church and I was so by the power of Greyskull, er, the Melchizedek Priesthood, and in the name of Jesus "Hol(e)y Hands" Christ.
God screens his phone calls and sometimes a "setting apart" is simply that, but other times god picks up the line to let you know through the Priesthood holder's mouth that he loves you and he's very proud of you, but he doesn't have time to talk to you directly. He's got to go. Netflix just uploaded a lot of new shit to the instant view.
As soon as I was done being set apart as a missionary, I was considered a missionary and had to start obeying the mission rules. The first of which was that I no longer had a first name anymore. I wasn't Raptor Jesus, I was Elder Jesus and would remain as such until I was "released" from my missionary calling. I was to call myself Elder Jesus, and instruct others to call me that too. There were quite a few other rules that I was supposed to obey now including that I was forbidden to watch television or play on the computer. The Stake President gave me a copy of the mission rules that come in a little white handbook and is sometimes referred to as the "white bible." It contained all of the rules that I was supposed to obey for the next two years, and I was supposed to keep it on me at all times possible.
I won't share everything in the "white bible" because that would be boring, but I will give the highlights. As well as not having a true personal identity anymore, missionaries are expected to obey the following:
Never be alone. Always be with your companion - and this companion will always be chosen for you.
Look, and dress a certain way.
Only read Church sanctioned materials. Nothing else. Study these daily.
After leaving the MTC, you can only talk to your family through weekly letters. Phone calls are only allowed on Christmas and Mother's Day.
Obey every other directive of your spiritual superiors.
Follow all the guidelines about what you are supposed to do each day (i.e. wake up at 6:30am every morning, scripture study for 2 hours, proselytize for 10 hours, be back in the apartment at 9:30pm, be in bed by 10:30) rinse and repeat.
At this point the reader (that means YOU!) is probably saying, "Wait a minute, Raptor Jesus, that sounds like a cult."
Well, first of all, what the fuck did I just say? I'm a missionary now so it's ELDER JESUS. And second of all, this is the only true church on the earth, and missionaries are going out to spread the word that people can only be truly saved by joining this church and giving this church their money. Now, does that still sound like a cult to you?
Yes? Well, they're right and your wrong because it's god's church. Don't you fucking dare criticize that otherwise you'll be criticizing god. And god will rape your face with flesh eating worms.
Now that you've stopped fucking interrupting me, let's move on with story time.
I was a missionary, and tomorrow would be the first day in the MTC. I went home, didn't watch television, checked my packed bags again to make sure I didn't forget anything and stared up into the darkness for most of the night.
Two fucking years.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Called to Serve, Motherfuckers!
For my generation, the Mormon mission is the most important rite of passage for a male in the church. The emphasis that the church leaders place on "serving a mission" cannot be understated. From the time you are little until turning 19 you are indoctrinated with countless songs, scriptures, talks, testimonies, prophetic bullying that you will serve a mission. One of the prophets stated with the full authority of god and the church, "Every worthy young man WILL serve a mission," and that was god's final word.
No matter what your personal feelings, no matter what your plans are, you better give up two years of your life to "spread the gospel." If you don't go on a mission, because of how weighty the prophet's words have been, then you must either be:
Unworthy (a.k.a. a goddamned sinner),
A "half - believer" (something was wrong with your testimony because you were disobeying direct revelation from the prophets),
Lazy (missions were hard, this was the lord's forge to temper your soul into the soldier fighting against Satan and his gang of evil dillholes),
Or there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with you either medically or mentally (lots of people still serve missions with medical and/or mental issues, so they better be BAD - or you better be going).
Because Utah Mormons are raised with the concept that there are no private boundaries when it comes to spiritual things (i.e. Grown men asking children how often they touch themselves at night), if you chose not to go - you better be prepared to be hassled for the rest of your life. As soon as someone finds out you didn't serve a mission, you WILL be asked why, and you WILL be judged for your answer - for the rest of your life. And for males, if you want to remain in the church and marry another LDS girl, you better go too. Men aren't the only ones indoctrinated from a young age. The girls are taught very explicitly over and over and over again that they should marry a returned missionary who "served with honor." So, you want to date? You better go, and you better not come home early either. Two years served, motherfucker. One of the most extreme quotes in Mormonism dealing with missions is, "If you come home early, it better be in a pine box." And while there is a caveat for medical "discharges," that's still not as good as serving the full two years. As soon as someone finds out that you came home early, you better have a good story - and you'll still probably get judged. There are plenty of faith promoting fourth-hand stories floating around about faithful missionaries who were healed by the power of the lord in order to complete their full two years.
For the true believers, missions are even supposed to trump military service. If you want to join the military, that's all well and good...but, you are serving your country. What about serving god? You think your country is better than your god? That's pretty fucking selfish. How dare you put yourself in harm's way to help protect the country and the country's freedoms? God only gave us this country AND wrote our constitution for us!
Tisk, tisk, tisk. As odd as it may sound, if you join the military instead of serving a mission, you will still be lumped into one of those categories above. Thems are the breaks, soldiers - HU-AH!
This thinking is so ingrained in the Mormon culture, that Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney insinuated that his boys didn't NEED to serve in the military because they had served missions instead and that was just as good if not better. When the rest of the non-Mormon country heard that, they reasonably reacted, "What the fuck?" and it took time for Romney to even process why he had just been so incredibly offensive to our service men, service women, their families, and everyone else with at least half-a-brain.
The earliest a boy can serve an LDS mission is 19 years old, and the process for leaving takes several months. Living in Utah, as soon as a boy is a senior in High School everyone starts asking, "when are you going to be putting in your papers?" The application papers go in once the potential missionary completes a physical evaluation with a doctor, and passes all the "worthiness" interviews with the Bishop and Stake President. No one should go on a mission without first confessing to his Bishop how often he touched his girlfriend's titties.
I wish that last line was just a joke. But it's fucking not. The "worthiness" interviews can be very invasive, and they are driven by guilt. Sexual sins are second only to murder for Mormonism, so for a young man to go on a mission and serve "worthily" means that he better have confessed and repented of all the naughty stuff he did with his girlfriend in her basement while her parents were away at a movie. If you don't confess and "repent," and the guilt finally gets to you in the beating of your hideous heart mid mission, and THEN you confess? Kiss that "honorable discharge" goodbye, here's your one-way ticket home to Shamesville, population: you and your family.
Many boys leave immediately after their 19th birthday. Sometimes a boy will go a little bit later because of the way college semesters fall or for other reasons, but as soon as 19 comes, the pressure is on and only gets worse as the clock continues to tick. I was six months away from earning my black belt (and NO not one you buy at Mervin's or K-Mart. Ha fucking ha! Got any other god awful hackneyed quips that I haven't already heard a million times before?), so I postponed my mission for that period of time, and got no end of shit for it. I had watched all of my male friends from high school go off already, and so everyone seemed to watch me with bated breath. Is he going to go? I don't know? I thought so? I thought we was going to go? Shouldn't he have already gone? Is he going to give up like he did with his Eagle Scout?
King of the Zombies Jesus. I finished a year of college before I left and was about to get my black belt. What a fucking disappointment to the entire community.
As the time for my mission got closer though, I was starting to have more and more trouble with depression. This wasn't new to me because I had battled cyclical depression through all of High School, but this wasn't going away. And I was confronted with the actual truth of my feelings.
No matter what your personal feelings, no matter what your plans are, you better give up two years of your life to "spread the gospel." If you don't go on a mission, because of how weighty the prophet's words have been, then you must either be:
Unworthy (a.k.a. a goddamned sinner),
A "half - believer" (something was wrong with your testimony because you were disobeying direct revelation from the prophets),
Lazy (missions were hard, this was the lord's forge to temper your soul into the soldier fighting against Satan and his gang of evil dillholes),
Or there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with you either medically or mentally (lots of people still serve missions with medical and/or mental issues, so they better be BAD - or you better be going).
Because Utah Mormons are raised with the concept that there are no private boundaries when it comes to spiritual things (i.e. Grown men asking children how often they touch themselves at night), if you chose not to go - you better be prepared to be hassled for the rest of your life. As soon as someone finds out you didn't serve a mission, you WILL be asked why, and you WILL be judged for your answer - for the rest of your life. And for males, if you want to remain in the church and marry another LDS girl, you better go too. Men aren't the only ones indoctrinated from a young age. The girls are taught very explicitly over and over and over again that they should marry a returned missionary who "served with honor." So, you want to date? You better go, and you better not come home early either. Two years served, motherfucker. One of the most extreme quotes in Mormonism dealing with missions is, "If you come home early, it better be in a pine box." And while there is a caveat for medical "discharges," that's still not as good as serving the full two years. As soon as someone finds out that you came home early, you better have a good story - and you'll still probably get judged. There are plenty of faith promoting fourth-hand stories floating around about faithful missionaries who were healed by the power of the lord in order to complete their full two years.
For the true believers, missions are even supposed to trump military service. If you want to join the military, that's all well and good...but, you are serving your country. What about serving god? You think your country is better than your god? That's pretty fucking selfish. How dare you put yourself in harm's way to help protect the country and the country's freedoms? God only gave us this country AND wrote our constitution for us!
Tisk, tisk, tisk. As odd as it may sound, if you join the military instead of serving a mission, you will still be lumped into one of those categories above. Thems are the breaks, soldiers - HU-AH!
This thinking is so ingrained in the Mormon culture, that Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney insinuated that his boys didn't NEED to serve in the military because they had served missions instead and that was just as good if not better. When the rest of the non-Mormon country heard that, they reasonably reacted, "What the fuck?" and it took time for Romney to even process why he had just been so incredibly offensive to our service men, service women, their families, and everyone else with at least half-a-brain.
The earliest a boy can serve an LDS mission is 19 years old, and the process for leaving takes several months. Living in Utah, as soon as a boy is a senior in High School everyone starts asking, "when are you going to be putting in your papers?" The application papers go in once the potential missionary completes a physical evaluation with a doctor, and passes all the "worthiness" interviews with the Bishop and Stake President. No one should go on a mission without first confessing to his Bishop how often he touched his girlfriend's titties.
I wish that last line was just a joke. But it's fucking not. The "worthiness" interviews can be very invasive, and they are driven by guilt. Sexual sins are second only to murder for Mormonism, so for a young man to go on a mission and serve "worthily" means that he better have confessed and repented of all the naughty stuff he did with his girlfriend in her basement while her parents were away at a movie. If you don't confess and "repent," and the guilt finally gets to you in the beating of your hideous heart mid mission, and THEN you confess? Kiss that "honorable discharge" goodbye, here's your one-way ticket home to Shamesville, population: you and your family.
Many boys leave immediately after their 19th birthday. Sometimes a boy will go a little bit later because of the way college semesters fall or for other reasons, but as soon as 19 comes, the pressure is on and only gets worse as the clock continues to tick. I was six months away from earning my black belt (and NO not one you buy at Mervin's or K-Mart. Ha fucking ha! Got any other god awful hackneyed quips that I haven't already heard a million times before?), so I postponed my mission for that period of time, and got no end of shit for it. I had watched all of my male friends from high school go off already, and so everyone seemed to watch me with bated breath. Is he going to go? I don't know? I thought so? I thought we was going to go? Shouldn't he have already gone? Is he going to give up like he did with his Eagle Scout?
King of the Zombies Jesus. I finished a year of college before I left and was about to get my black belt. What a fucking disappointment to the entire community.
As the time for my mission got closer though, I was starting to have more and more trouble with depression. This wasn't new to me because I had battled cyclical depression through all of High School, but this wasn't going away. And I was confronted with the actual truth of my feelings.
I didn’t want to go.
I knew that I had to, though. This feeling didn’t come purely from all the seminary lessons about “every worthy male.” The Church had the Truth. Who was I to not offer that to everyone? The Church promised me what I wanted from Eternity. I had to at least offer that to people, but how? People’s beliefs are personal. Who was I to try to change those? I was depressed because I didn’t want to go, and my family could sense that, but I assured them that I would go. That was most important. It’s normal to feel “nervous,” the mission is a big step in your life, but as long as you go you’ll be blessed for it.
After beating just enough shit out of my martial arts instructor for him to find me awesome enough, he set a date for my ceremony, and all of my papers went it.
A couple weeks later, my "mission call" came - which wasn't a call so much as a packet of information about where you are going and what you have to bring with you for the next two years of your life. It was all momentarily exciting. I was going to Germany, but after the initial excitement faded - my depression worsened.
I got depressed enough to go to my bishop. I had battled the depression in High School enough to know that I had a "cycle" that was just as beautiful as any other girl's cycle of sloughing off blood and tissue and having it slowly leak out an orifice. But this cycle turned into a spiral. Instead of every six to eight weeks feeling trapped in a shithouse for a few days without any sun or escape, I felt trapped in my life for what would be the rest of forever.
I had not asked for help before, and my current bishop was a friend. I went to him and said that I just needed to talk to someone discreetly.
Well, if there's a problem in your life, the church can fix it! They always know what to do, and are better than any other organization in the world.
My bishop refered me to LDS family services just to talk to someone and said that it would be fine and discrete, and so I went.
The "session" lasted all of five minutes. I was asked if I was depressed. Yes. Did I have any suicidal thoughts? Yes.
Wrong answer. The counselor flipped his shit. I needed to shut my entire mission down right now. I didn't agree with him. I couldn't leave the session. I did.
I went home to a meeting with the bishop who was clearly feeling like an asshole. While traveling home from the "therapist's" office, counselor McBitchtits contacted the MTC and informed them that a dangerous young man was about to enter the MTC. The MTC then contacted the stake president to ax why in god's unholy name did he let an evil demon slip from hell to come and join god's army. Stake president then called bishop to ax what the fuck was even going on, and bishop learns a hard lesson about LDS family services being malignant twats.
Getting into the MTC suddenly became the ordeal of getting a real, licensed therapist to write a note that I am not a danger to myself or anyone else.
This ordeal, of course, is all proof that Satan really didn't want ME to go on a mission, because I AM totally that badass. Satan's shit was about to get fucked up by me. I was going to go on a mission and kick open the doors of hell and unleash havoc on Satan and his minions.
"Merry Christmas, bitches!"
A local therapist just had a cancellation and could see me the next day. "Praise Jesus!!! Halleluiah!!! God is so fucking great!" This was proof that I was supposed to go.
The real therapy session lasted all of 10 minutes. Five minutes was to explain the situation, and five minutes for the actual, licensed psychologist to tell me that I had cyclical depression, I was going to be fine, and here is your note. Now go and teach the hell out of those unbelievers.
But in order to be set apart as a missionary "Elder" and before heading into the Missionary Training Facility, I had to go through the temple for the first time.
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