posted
My mother almost died while my brother was on his mission. This isn't an abstract concept for me.
You have to understand that the standards are there as the standards - it does not mean that exceptions are impossible. Missionaries are also supposed to only call home twice a year, but I called home almost five times in the last two months of my mission with my mission president's blessing. I also went home a month early with my mission president's blessing for various reasons, and I could have gone home earlier, all honorably. When my mom and her doctor discovered the extensive damage to her heart that the virus had caused, my mom seriously contemplated not even telling my brother. I remember the conversation where I freaked out about that and said there was no way she could keep this information from my missionary brother. She didn't want to tell him because she didn't want him to get distracted. If she had died while he was out there (and this was a real possibility), then he could have come home for the funeral. But she didn't want him to.
From her perspective, there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. She might have died then (instead of a year later), and she figured that dying is part of life, and a mission is part of life, and she hadn't wasted the first 20 years of his life and had done all she could, and she wanted him to have this chance, these small two years, to dedicate to the Lord completely and totally.
It isn't a lifetime vow of celibacy. It's temporary situation where for two years you dedicate yourself to doing the Lord's work, and you put things like family and schooling and career aside for it. You'll never have that chance again - that chance to live totally and completely for one great work. It is terribly out of balance, and a life lived like that permanently would be wrong. It isn't permanent - it's a privilege.
Being there is voluntary. It's easy to make it sound sinister, just like it's easy to make loyalty to God above family and state sound sinister and a willingness to abandon your fishing business to follow an itinerant preacher around Judea sound crazy.
Bob, I'm not offended that you find parallels to the Catholic church, although Catholics might be a little offended that you consider it a possible insult. The church is a patriarchal hierarchy that is institutionalized and self-perpetuating. If you consider all such organizations inherently sinister (and many do) without considering the nature of the organization itself, then it'll creep you out. That's too bad. It comes from ignorance.
If someone absolutely wants to go home - frankly, for any reason - then they can. If they sit down in their apartment and declares themselves done, they can go home. But no, you don't come back. It's not like volunteering at the hospital where you wander in and out depending on if it fits into your schedule. Missions are much too hard and much too dreary to do for any other reason than you want to, and if you're not there with all your heart, you'll be miserable.
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I don't think that missions in general means someone grows up sooner. I think part of them does - they definitely come back more spiritually mature and often/usually with better interpersonal skills. On the other hand, you'll never be so coddled in your life as when you're a missionary. You have someone with you 24 hours a day. There is a schedule to follow for everyday. You have an important work to do and you move within the parameters of that work, but you don't decide when to move to a new city, when move on from an area that isn't working. There is no chance of being late on bills, no chance of being forgotten, very little chance of falling through the cracks. You get a one on one interview once a month with someone who loves you and who is devoting his life to making sure you and your peers are happy. I was floored at how many long-existing medical conditions are discovered in the MTC and in the field, where for the first time in a long time there are phalanxes of people paying close attention to you. That will probably never happen again as an adult, and that's not the life of a fully autonomous adult.
It isn't supposed to be a rite of initiation. When the stricter rules for prospective missionaries were explained, this was specifically repudiated. It's not strapping someone to an ant hill to see if they can handle the pain; it's an opportunity to do the Lord's work. Disobedient or lazy missionaries are worse than none at all, because that means the mission president spends all his time babysitting. The brethren have said they want missionaries who hit the ground running.
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As a side note, I think the standards here are similar to the concepts of justice and mercy. Justice puts the law down - there is no one to whom justice and the law does not apply. Without the law, without justice, then mercy is impossible. What would be mercy is simply license. When the rule is that you don't go home for funerals and weddings and all the things that invariably happen in life, because you have promised to dedicate your life to other things, then that's the rule that makes exceptions possible. It isn't like anyone is being kept against their will, and I AM a little offended at the suggestion that individual missionaries are not treated with care. If you had any idea at the amount of prayer and love and attention and worry and mollycoddling given to these missionaries, you wouldn't worry.
The rules are general, and the exceptions are individual. That makes sense, doesn't it?
quote:One might say that Mormons are expected to grow up sooner than others of the same age.
I don't really believe that you folks age any faster than everyone else. As you say, you might be "expected" to. But actually achieving maturity faster than everyone else? I doubt.
I'm reminded of a girlfriend in Junior High who asserted that "girls mature faster than boys." How does one answer that? "Nuh Uh.!" ??? I mean, when you assert something like this for members of your religion, I suppose you are leaving aside those who go into military service, the Peace Corps, Seminary, start families, etc. etc.
All of those are taking on the trappings of adulthood at the ages indicate. Whether they are mature or not is an entirely different question.
And one that is only meaningful at the individual level, not in the aggregate. For if one can find a single counter-example -- an LDS male who is both immature and on a mission -- the whole set of assertions about entering adulthood, and, perhaps even the part about a "calling from God" is pretty much blown out of the water.
And before you say it, the essential data that are lacking is how much maturity the individual would have gained in the same 2 year period had they NOT gone on mission. We won't know. The ages 19-21 are times of enormous personal growth and life changes no matter who the person is. I doubt you'll find a person on the planet who doesn't marvel at how much they've grown in those two years of life.
and...
I don't think I would've liked Brigham Young very much.
kat, I'm not ignoring you, I just don't can't really respond to a personal (and very meaningful) anecdote like that. Your mom was acting in the way she thought best, but I would've had a very hard time agreeing with her decision.
I have a sense, however, that much of the decision-making on this issue is made at the local level -- at least that is where the encouragement or lack of encouragement would come from first and perhaps foremost.
I feel like I'm just nitpicking here, though. It's not my intention to make you all feel like I don't admire your church and especially the missionary aspect of it. I'm more curious as to how such a thing operates. In my experience, 19 year olds are rather easily taken advantage of by people in authority positions. That is probably what makes them wonderful soldiers (that and a sense of their own invulnerability).
Anyway, you can't judge by me. I'm the kind of person who, if my son or daughter was in the military, would write to the president making it clear that I didn't raise this person for 18 or so years just so they could end up dead on a field somewhere for a cause I didn't necessarily agree with. Sure, it's the individual's choice but still there's a measure of concern that they are being placed in unneccesary danger. God's work, the country's work, etc. Let's be honest. You can be sent to a mission in Columbia or Beirut, or you can end up in Bryan, TX. You could be killed anywhere, but I don't think the decisions are entirely God's. I think the sons and daughters of the elite in America get to go to desk jobs or fly around over the US instead of in combat zones.
There are safe and less safe mission trip locations. I imagine I would protest if my son or daughter got sent someplace on the more dangerous side of things. I wouldn't readily believe that God had made that decision. And I'd probably not just pray about my displeasure.
Much to the embarrassment of all, I'm sure.
All of this presupposes that parents of LDS missionaries are themselves members of the church. I can imagine many of your converts having a hard time explaining things to their parents, should they decide to go on a mission trip post-conversion.
Oh well...Hey, it works for you.
I'm sure I'd rather have my kid off on a mission in Hoboken, NJ than hanging out in Iraq with a US uniform on.
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posted
Early on in my mission, I looked around my area and thought, "If my Mom could see this, she would demand that I come home right now." I had the unusual privilege of being able to show my parents the areas of my mission. That was really cool. The funny thing was, by the time they came out (at the end of my mission) I surprised that they were so shocked!
Kat, thank you so much for sharing your feelings on that. I really appreciate what you said.
Bob, I think Occasional's statement comes a lot from the observation within the church that those youth who serve missions tend to gain aspects of character and maturity that those who don't serve don't develop. I would expect the same would be true of a youth sent into millitary service as compared to one who didn't.
quote: You can be sent to a mission in Columbia or Beirut
No, you can't. The church closes missions in highly unstable places- I remember when Columbia was closed. I don't think we ever had missions in Beirut. Unless you were talking about military missions.
I seem to remember you're a professional psychologist, Bob, and so it is with some trepidation that I challenge your implication that the experiences we have have no bearing on our maturity. Though I would agree that Peace Corps could be considered just as, if not more, "maturing" than an LDS mission. An early marriage... maybe.
I think the military is pretty well designed not to outstrip the ability of most people to mature rapidly. But the military experience varies a lot, from one branch of service to another.
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posted
Bev, it seems like it would be hard to prove cause and effect on that last part. Wouldn’t it be just as likely that the youth who are more mature already tend to go on a mission?
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The parallel with the military is not unfounded - "God's Army" after all. Add in the strict schedule and the expectation of obedience, and the analogy is pretty dang close.
I think...
I think in being a soldier, you are asked to defend your country, but you are asked to do it in perhaps unsavory ways, and many soldiers action come home a little broken from the exerience. On the other hand, missionaries who are obedient and who "action" come home filled with light. If by your fruits ye shall know them, then missions are a very, very good thing. There's a reason people call it the best two years (although it shouldn't be) - up until that point, it's certainly the most powerful and uplifting. And it's very fun.
My brother went to Ecuador, and my mom wanted to "pick him up" - go to Ecuador at the end of his mission and have him show them around. My brother refused. He didn't want my mom to see the squalor he had been living in.
There were several people I encountered in Detroit who had the attitude of "Poor baby - what are they doing to you. You don't know what you're doing." It's not flattering, and I still don't agree with it. The girls leave when they are 21, even. Maybe without the grit of the world on them yet, but that's how life works - the times of greatest decision-making are the times of least experience. You have to bite it and make the best decision you can with the information you have. And two years of service isn't a bad decision.
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For the record, I don't agree with an across the board "more mature" stance. I think they are mature in some areas and much less mature in others. The more mature spiritually is often startling, so the rest gets extrapolated.
posted
I have a lot to say on the subject of missionaries, my sister and her husband have been serving in the Dominican Republic for 10 years. I'm not going to say anything about them right now.
I just wanted to at the comment that Bob_Scopatz is a professional psychologist.
posted
beverly, yeah, it's kind of amazing what we can become inured to, but when we see it from another person's perspective (or get reminded of our own starting point) we are just amazed.
Same thing happens to prison guards and trauma surgeons, so it's not altogether a positive thing. It's just habituation.
As for the comparison to those who never went on mission, isn't there some component of self-selection bias, as well as actual bias, in that comparison? Some have already made it clear that "failing" to go on a mission is probably a better description of how not going is viewed. So, a guy who is generally judged to be a failure at something like this is no doubt going to be viewed in a much less favorable light.
His misdeeds amplified, perhaps? His lack of seriousness is judged a flaw rather than a refreshing youthfulness? His behavior more closely scrutinized, perhaps? And his not taking a rightful place in the community is also a judgement, is it not?
Anyway, there's also the question of what you mean by maturity. Sober 21 year olds are judged abnormally somber in most of our culture. Is rushing to take on responsibilities a good thing? Does taking them on make you ready to take them on? Is getting married and having children when you are struggling financially a sign of maturity, for example, or a sign of something else?
Succeeding at it, of course, would be a good measure of something. But there's luck involved there as well.
All I have to say is "where's the passion?" I know LDS people are plenty passionate. But this dispassionate approach to missions and the desire to "act mature beyond one's years" is strange to me.
I like my missionaries passionate.
Firey.
And with a certain zest for life.
Since I know for a fact that LDS members can and do live passionate lives, I guess I must be getting the exact wrong impression of what a mission does to someone.
And I don't care how long it takes a person to "get" passionate. I don't think we're on a timetable.
I don't think sober and responsible is necessarily something to be achieved through a 2 year induction ceremony either. It still has to be earned. 21 year olds who act 40 are still 21. They have one amazing life experience under their belt, but they still are what they are.
Just like soldiers coming home. They hung out for two years mostly with other 19 year olds. In a way, it's kind of a "lord of the flies" thing.
It might make some more mature, but I think it also makes some more twisted than they would've been otherwise.
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Hmm...I could send you "Called to Serve". It's a chruch movie about the MTC and serving a mission. I promise, you see the sight of thousands of missionaries belting out the hymn Called to Serve in twenty different languages, and you run to the "terrifyingly-passionate religious zealots" side.
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quote: Some have already made it clear that "failing" to go on a mission is probably a better description of how not going is viewed. So, a guy who is generally judged to be a failure at something like this is no doubt going to be viewed in a much less favorable light.
You're exactly right, Bob.
My LDS friend (the one I was interested in romantically at one point in my life) "failed" to go on a mission when he was 19. He had been raised a good Mormon, and always it was assumed he would go, but when the time came, his father was in bad health and the family farm was in jeopardy of failing without him. He finally chose (after counseling with the bishop, etc.) to not go on the mission and instead stay and work the farm to support his family and to keep it going for future generations because he was severely NEEDED at home.
Because of this choice, he was greatly shunned by his local LDS community (yeah, it was in Utah, where they take this kind of thing very seriously) and although he still considers himself very LDS, he now hasn't attended an LDS service in years because of this dark cloud.
It breaks my heart to hear him speak of it (which he usually won't) -- because now here is this 50 year old guy that is STILL carrying around this burden of how he was treated by other LDS for electing to NOT go on a mission over 30 years ago. It reminds me, personally, of the way some people treated our Vietnam soldiers when they returned home from doing what they had been drafted to do -- with disdain and disapproval.
It was one of the (many) things that turned me away from the LDS church when I was investigating it -- that others could make a person feel like such a failure for all his life for choosing to not go on a mission.
posted
Re: Psychology...I worked with rats & pigeons. Now I study behavior in traffic.
Experience does mature people. I never said it didn't.
I just disagree that a 21 year old coming back from a mission is really that different from a 21 year old who stayed home.
What matters, really, is not how successfully one adjusts to college, or work, or missions, or war, or peace corp, or what have you, but what of that is relevant to your daily life.
A person's experiences are, of course, relevant to how they deal with life.
It is also a lens through which we view new experiences.
So, if you come back from war thinking in terms of life and death and believe that fate is in charge, that will color your life. You'll seem more mature. But will you be well adjusted to your new circumstances.
I dare say that an LDS boy returning as a man from a mission trip is going to be better adjusted to life within the LDS church than a boy who stayed home and became a man another way (see FG's post for a better example than I have).
Look, it's not a slam on the LDS church. It's an observation on the attitude that some are sharing about maturity.
Our friend who inspired this thread, for example. I feel for him. He came home feeling mature and having lived through the "big experience" and yet he'd obviously never recoded his experience in the whorehouse from a perspective of mature thought based on Christ's example.
I'm stretching here -- I admit it -- but now he's had to face it. How old is he now? Is he NOW mature? Was he two weeks ago? Not on this subject anyway. IMHO.
But if I go around cataloguing other people's immaturity I'm going to be in REAL trouble.
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quote: Bev, it seems like it would be hard to prove cause and effect on that last part. Wouldn’t it be just as likely that the youth who are more mature already tend to go on a mission?
I understand the difficulty in proving causality, but that possibility doesn't make as much sense. I find it easier to believe that the nature of the experiences one goes through on a mission are going to naturally have more of a character-building effect on a person than the things that just happen in average life. The only reason that wouldn't make sense to me is if certain things happen in the life of a 19-21 year old that don't happen to them before or afterwards.
quote: For the record, I don't agree with an across the board "more mature" stance. I think they are mature in some areas and much less mature in others. The more mature spiritually is often startling, so the rest gets extrapolated.
posted
beverly, that's very interesting. I'm not sure what those experiences would be...or rather how they'd be different from missionary work for any other church. I mean, what is it about knocking on doors, offering an overview of your church's teachings, and every once in awhile being given the joyous opportunity to assist a new convert in joining the church. That's a rush, to be sure!
But...there's obviously more to the experience too. Time away from home. Self reliance. Responsibility to a partner. Leadership in the partnership (after the first year?) All kinds of great things would come from it.
And some of that experience would be expected to transfer over to "regular" life upon coming home.
The experience of saving up for such a trip, too, must be pretty amazing. Although, it must be subsidized in some way, mustn't it? Do the missionaries pay rent during their time on mission? Do they have to save up in advance for 2 years worth of room and board? If so, then I'm really impressed. I don't know many adults who could work long enough and hard enough to be able to afford two years away.
But I figured it was more like you pay for your plane fare and a bit towards expenses, but there must be some sort of thing like free room, meals, something...
Otherwise, wouldn't we be talking about saving up something on the order of $15,000 to $30,000 as a bare minimum, just to survive?
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quote: As for the comparison to those who never went on mission, isn't there some component of self-selection bias, as well as actual bias, in that comparison? Some have already made it clear that "failing" to go on a mission is probably a better description of how not going is viewed. So, a guy who is generally judged to be a failure at something like this is no doubt going to be viewed in a much less favorable light.
His misdeeds amplified, perhaps? His lack of seriousness is judged a flaw rather than a refreshing youthfulness? His behavior more closely scrutinized, perhaps? And his not taking a rightful place in the community is also a judgement, is it not?
You know, I can believe there is probably at least some of that going on. Difficult to say how much. An anecdotal example: In my husbands family of 5 brothers, (the youngest of whom is not yet old enough to go on a mission) one of those brothers chose not to go. He is agnostic now and was then also.
The funny thing is, he looks at himself in comparison with his brothers who did choose to go, and he sees something missing in himself. Now, we are talking someone with no faith in God, this particular church, or any other. He actually said to me once that he kinda wishes he had gone! I didn't say it, but I thought to myself, "Why on earth would you want to serve a proselytizing mission for a church you have no belief in?" He knew something of the experiences his brothers had and he wanted that for himself.
Another anecdotal example: In my family of 6, my sister is the only one who didn't serve a mission. It was by no means because of a lack of maturity. I can not stress this enough. *I* was the terribly immature one. She got married at an age to young to serve. I think she has always felt since that I have something in me from my experience that she wishes she had for herself.
The extent to which these perceptions are true cannot be proven. We all have to decide what we think for ourselves.
quote: It might make some more mature, but I think it also makes some more twisted than they would've been otherwise.
Oh, ho ho ho, I definitely have to agree with that. Most LDS will admit that a newly returned missionary is pretty weird. They have to be "rehabilitated". Ever seen the movie "The RM"? It takes a humorous view on the subject.
quote: Our friend who inspired this thread, for example. I feel for him. He came home feeling mature and having lived through the "big experience" and yet he'd obviously never recoded his experience in the whorehouse from a perspective of mature thought based on Christ's example.
That is a good point, Bob. Can someone be mature and naive at the same time? The use of the word mature probably means vastly different things to different people. Missions don't necessarily do much to alieviate naivette. (sp?)
quote: Because of this choice, he was greatly shunned by his local LDS community (yeah, it was in Utah, where they take this kind of thing very seriously) and although he still considers himself very LDS, he now hasn't attended an LDS service in years because of this dark cloud.
I can't help but wonder, though, how much of it was actual shunning and how much of it was him not forgiving himself for not going?
Oh, and if he was shunned, I think that was terribly wrong for him to be judged like that.
quote: The experience of saving up for such a trip, too, must be pretty amazing. Although, it must be subsidized in some way, mustn't it? Do the missionaries pay rent during their time on mission? Do they have to save up in advance for 2 years worth of room and board? If so, then I'm really impressed. I don't know many adults who could work long enough and hard enough to be able to afford two years away.
Paying for missions has evolved over the years. It used to be that you paid directly for your own mission to the extent that you were able, receiving help for what you couldn't manage. But the standard of living is so different in different parts of the world. Compare, say, a mission in Brazil to a mission in France. Big cost difference.
So to help make things more financially equal, all missionaries (or their families) pay a set monthly amount. This covers everything except you getting to the MTC. They cover the cost of getting you to your home. Again, if the missionary or family can't cover the cost, the members pitch in and donate. Members make donations on a regular basis that goes to general or local missionary funds and is used as needed.
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posted
Thanks, Bob. You're quite right about that!
And Bev, some of what you say is true -- some of it is him beating up on himself emotionally. He seems to dwell on his past mistakes quite a bit (which was a red flag to me during our relationships, but I was willing to overlook it <wink>)
But when you live in an area (like he does) that is 95% LDS, and everyone has known you from your childhood, it is hard to walk away from old "mistakes" (which I don't think this was a mistake, it was just a decision that others didn't agree with)
posted
You know, that has got to be hard about growing up in a small community where everyone has known you from birth. We moved around so much, I often looked upon such a lifestyle with envy. But it does seem that a lot of unfair gossip and judging goes on in such a climate also.
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quote: I just disagree that a 21 year old coming back from a mission is really that different from a 21 year old who stayed home.
It's interesting to hear you talk about this, Bob. Some of the people you are talking to have seen and experienced this themselves. You have not, and yet you seem perfectly comfortable declaring how things must be.
It's as though an astronaut came back to earth and said "Really! The earth *is* round -- I saw it myself!" to have people respond "Oh, that can't be, you just saw it that way because you really wanted to."
I'm not trying to shut you down, Bob, but I just wanted to share how you sometimes come across. I have to consciously keep myself from getting defensive when people say, in essence "You Mormons are like this...", "You mormons should...", or etc..
I'm not that what you say is without value, but it is extremely hard to take "You should do ____" in the same spirit that you take "We should do _____".
I guess there are two reasons why it's hard to be an effective critic of a group that you aren't a part of. The first one is that people will be doubtful you really know what you are talking about. The second one is that people are naturally more defensive against criticism from without than from within.
I wish there were a graemlin that says "please take this in the best possible light, because I have no wish to offend".
On second thought, maybe there is.
edit: as I read this and look at it from another view-point, I think "That sounds like a personal problem to me, Porter." Perhaps it is.
posted
mph -- I think the problem is that the point is really hard to prove.
Let's say LDS #1 goes on a mission trip and has lots of life-changing experiences that really help him grow. LDS #2 stays home, but experiences other life-changing experiences here. How do you possibly compare?
I mean -- maybe nothing exciting will happen to #1 on the mission trip, whereas #2 staying homes has several character-building events happen in their life. Or vice versa.
Since you can never get the SAME person to both 1) stay home AND 2) go on a mission trip; you can't really do a fair comparison of how events that happen to them during those two years of their life affected their character building.
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mph, if the argument is that the mission shaped and changed the person than I don't think anyone would disagree. It's a huge change from any life you knew before at a time when you're ripe for change. Of course it's going to impact you, how could it not? But is it somehow intrinsically better than joining the army? Getting married? Going to college? Volunteering at a hospital? How could we ever judge? All of those things are also different from any life you've known. The question is always how well you respond to the changes and how you can apply them to other situations.
It's very hard to compare different people and you can't compare the effects different choices would have on the same person for obvious reasons.
Quite frankly, If Joe Mormon fresh from his mission came up to me and declared he was more mature than I was as he had served a mission and I had not I would be forced to arch an eyebrow at him (or at least try. I can't raise one eyebrow. Still practicing).
Edit: More or less what Farmgirl said.
[ July 20, 2004, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: Bob the Lawyer ]
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posted
mph -- if you don’t want to hear non-Mormon perspectives on particular topics, don’t discuss them on Hatrack. If the topic is here, it’s open for anyone.
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quote: The funny thing is, he looks at himself in comparison with his brothers who did choose to go, and he sees something missing in himself. Now, we are talking someone with no faith in God, this particular church, or any other. He actually said to me once that he kinda wishes he had gone! I didn't say it, but I thought to myself, "Why on earth would you want to serve a proselytizing mission for a church you have no belief in?" He knew something of the experiences his brothers had and he wanted that for himself.
Bev, maybe what he doesn't realize is perhaps that "something missing" that he feels, is the difference between his brothers faith in God, and his lack of such a feeling. Maybe it has nothing at all to do with the mission trip or the experience of that which he missed. Maybe he thinks the mission trip would have filled that hole.
quote: Quite frankly, If Joe Mormon fresh from his mission came up to me and declared he was more mature than I was as he had served a mission and I had not I would be forced to arch an eyebrow at him (or at least try. I can't raise one eyebrow. Still practicing).
That wouldn't be a terribly mature thing to say, eh? Kinda like a person saying, "I'm more humble than you are." The words uttered forth immediately prove themselves untrue.
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My username is from a character in a book about (among many things) a religion that is self-admittedly false. In fact, a warning at the start of the book is that anyone who cannot understand the usefulness of a religion built on lies will not understand the book.
It goes on to posit that most religions are useful institutions in their own right, regardless of their veracity, so long as they are by and large ethical. Religions can create an extended family, a system that one can be a part of that is larger than one's self. There is a longing in nearly every person for some sort of structure as this.
Despite libertarians' protestations, the human animal is not a solitary one; I don't think it is even primarily one. We do act as individuals, but I think our nature is a mix between pure pack animal and pure solitary. There isn't a neat demarcation. To try to enshrine one or the other as the ideal human condition is in grave error.
Anyway, I would say that the agnostic brother desires for this sense of belonging, this shared experience within a greater good. In this case, the brother is intimately familiar with a particular system (the LDS). So he maps his emptiness to that structure that he knows.
I don't see the strangeness in wanting to experience something that is based on false premises. I think it's an inherent longing in a human animal that is not in their ideal environment.
posted
Perhaps, Farmgirl. But he honestly believes it has nothing to do with faith. He *believes* that there is no God. But it may be that that is at least part of what he feels the lack of. But knowing the people involved, I think he is also referring to a certain sense of wisdom and purpose in life. For me, that is an effect of having true faith. For him, it is not.
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Bob- young persons are encouraged to save up for a mission or for marriage as the church discourages going into debt.
I don't know what it is now, but when my siblings were going it was close to 1,000 dollars a month for a Eurpean mission, more like 100 for South America. When they standardized it it was about 250, because there are more missionaries in the less costly places.
I don't know how finances for food are handled. Though I heard that the president of the L.A. mission had to make ramen noodles against the rules because some missionaries were eating only that to conserve their money. I don't know if they then spent the money on other stuff.
A missionary I have referred to a number of times acquired a lot of souvenirs and questionable literature on his mission. Now this wasn't a guy who just got swept along by peer pressure and had no testimony. I think he tended toward bipolar, because he could be very sincerely spiritual sometimes but also make really bad decisions. And no, the mission didn't fix him.
Of course, my husband didn't go on a mission. My second landmark went more into the details. But in the process of seeking the Lord's will and feeling that he shouldn't go, he insulated himself from any criticism anyone might have of that decision then or later in life.
I hope that the culture can keep up with the doctrine on the new standards (of a mission being an honor and not a duty).
P.S. I don't think the new standards would have prevented the debacle that occured with my other friend, who was sent back early and assumed to be gay by some congregation members. Unless the standards weeded out the intolerant jerk companion who told the mission president that my friend was a ticking time bomb of fury.
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Bok, having recently read "Dune", I find what you have said here very interesting. "Dune" deals extensively with religions, while not *necessarily* based on lies, they are not based on a Supreme Creator. (Supreme Being perhaps, but not Supreme Creator.) Frank Herbert seems to have a similar view, that religion can be very useful even in a universe with no Deity.
Edit: Not all that far off from my POV in that some churches are more true than others, but most of them tend to bring people closer to God.
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Huh, mack, I suppose it is possible for a truly humble person to say "I am humble," and have it be completely true.
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The Dune books devolve into a "moral" that transcendent religion does nothing for people and passing on genes is the ultimate reality. Of course, it's based in a sci fi universe. I don't know if Herbert held those views when he wrote the early books. I highly recommend Dune Messiah, however.
I think the story probably started with the question "what if nature and nurture could produce transcendent experience?" It was an interesting basis for a world. But I think Herbert bought into his own creation. At least that is what I hear.
Mack... sadly, I realize the honor/duty thing is going to take some time.
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bev, in this case, the religion (Bokononism) had conflicting cosmology. It could be seen as polytheistic, but tended to the monotheistic of generic Western assumptions side of things.
But the Books of Bokonon (the "scripture") started with the exclamation [paraphrased]: "Close this book at once! It is nothing but a pack of foma!" Foma is the term for harmless, even helpful, untruths. One of the many ironies of the plot of the book was that for a religion militantly adamant about it's incorrectness, all the predictions it had came true
quote: Of course it's going to impact you, how could it not? But is it somehow intrinsically better than joining the army? Getting married? Going to college? Volunteering at a hospital? How could we ever judge? All of those things are also different from any life you've known.
This makes sense. But in my case, if I had not gone on my mission, I would not have joined the army, gotten married, nor volunteered at a hospital. I would have stayed in college, worked part time, and played.
I can tell you that I was more mature for going on my mission than I would have been otherwise. Are there people that didn't go on a mission that were more mature than me at 21? With a doubt. But it does not change the fact that I was more mature because of my mission. Not more mature than others, but more mature than I would have been.
Can I prove it? No.
quote: if you don’t want to hear non-Mormon perspectives on particular topics, don’t discuss them on Hatrack. If the topic is here, it’s open for anyone.
Dana -- like I said, I wasn't trying to shut Bob down. I was trying to share my personal frustrations. Perhaps that was a mistake.
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I went on a mission, and my best friend didn't. She got married. There is NO QUESTION of who was more mature - I KNEW she was more mature than I was. She didn't need to go. I think that I did.
There is something that comes from missions though that's hard to get otherwise. I just saw that the other day. I have a friend who is 20 and getting married, and she's practically more mature than me NOW, much less when I was 20. She's excited, she loves her fiance, she knows it's the right thing to do, but this desire to go prompted seriously one of the dumbest things I ever heard her say. She said she wanted to put in her papers and go through the MTC, and then come home and marry her fiance. I was actually irritated, because that's such a casual stance towards a serious committment. A mission call isn't like getting your fortune told! But she still wanted that experience.
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Of course anyone can answer. Bob can put his opinions forth all he wants, and the LDS are free to discount them completely because he doesn't have the same experiences to draw from. Having been through it, so many of these concerns aren't a problem at all, and I know because I've seen it in practice. Bob is free to discount my opinion because...I don't know - if I loved it that much, of course I'd defend it? I think that's what's happening.
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Actually, I have read "Dune Messiah" and am now in the middle of "Children of Dune". (Need to finish that....)
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Bev- finding it hard? what say we make it a mutual challenge? I read the other books last summer, loved them, then got stuck in the middle of Children .
quote: This makes sense. But in my case, if I had not gone on my mission, I would not have joined the army, gotten married, nor volunteered at a hospital. I would have stayed in college, worked part time, and played.
I think the total dedication that comes with any pursuit one has long looked forward to is going to build the person.
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quote: I think the total dedication that comes with any pursuit one has long looked forward to is going to build the person.
True. For me, though, it wasn't sometihng long looked forward to. A lot of growing had to take place for me to get myself to the point where I woulc go on a mission at all. Why didn't I want to go? Because it sounded hard. Just being willing to go was a hard step for me.
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Sure, hon, I will accept the challange. While the book has been somewhat nebulous, I think I mostly lost steam getting distracted by other things--like the arrival of "Rachel and Leah"! Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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MPH...the problem with the assertion (of greater maturity) is that it is wrong if one person can be found who came back no more mature than when he or she left.
The assertion about a particular individual, of course, cannot be gainsayed by anyone except those who know the person. Or the person themself.
Just bear in mind, however, that these so called transformational experiences can often be a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's a halo effect of the people back home expecting to see a change, and finding it. There's the person themselves wanting to change, and doing so.
But the claim is "MORE" mature -- universally.
And that's not the same as saying the experience was or was not valuable. Or was or was not life changing.
So, I guess the problem is that if you suck that one sentence out of the posts I've made in this thread, you can choose to be offended by it. Or not.
But don't misconstrue it as anything more than what I've really said. Repeatedly. That a claim like that can't be substantiated and it is much more like wish fulfillment than a reflection on the benefits (in general) of going off to do God's work for a two year stint.
I've never said that LDS people are immature. A 21 year old Mormon is probably at least as mature as the average 21 year old from any other walk of life.
You just shouldn't claim stuff about your people's maturity being higher than everyone elses because of having gone through YOUR nominal transformational experience. Frankly, the judgement is being made on two faulty pieces of data:
1) That YOU yourself (yourselves) feel like you matured when YOU went away for two years. and 2) That the kids who went away are judged to be more mature than LDS kids who stayed behind.
Oddly enough, I just wonder why this is important to your group's ethos. What is it about pride in your advanced maturity that would bring out such a defensive reaction in the first place?
I mean, really, do you care about that?
I wonder if this might be touching on a central tenet or something else that's very near and dear to the LDS church. I unwittingly seem to stumble onto those with alarming frequency.
And I'm probably pretty insulting about it in my approach because I care a lot less about it than you do. And I'm fairly unapologetic in my non-caring attitude.
But every time I say anything that is even close to an observation of LDS being pretty much the same as everyone else, people seem to come forward with defenses of LDS superiority in all things societal.
Okay, now I'm overgeneralizing. And I expect any moment that Rat Named Dog will once again have to correct my mistaken opinion.
It's okay. I really don't care. Really. It's just odd to me. I mean, if someone came up to me and started trying to explain how going through the ordeal of graduate school in my late teens and twenties was a maturing event that had transformational aspects, I'd say they were right.
But if they tried to say that this was something that made all graduate students more mature than people who left college and went on to do things like work, start families, go on missions, pump gas, or hang out in their parent's basements, I'd have to say they were nuts.
Maturity is only measurable in individuals, if it is measurable at all.
And you folks have a cultural-specific definition of maturity that includes a check box next to "went on mission." So, ipso facto, the person is mature.
It's a stamp of approval, it seems.
One that the leadership supposedly repudiated (i.e., it is NOT a right of passage). But they HAD to say that, didn't they? Why, because everyone was/is treating it AS a right of passage.
Aw heck, I'm doing it again, aren't I? I always sound so critical when I make LDS-specific observations.
It's my holier than thou attitude really. Insufferable.
Even if I am, on average, holier. (I have extra holes due to surgery, although most HAVE healed up).
posted
Humans are meant for service. To dedicate two years to serving, through great difficulties, something higher and better than yourself... why that is one of the very happiest things a human could do. Of course one would be better off for it!
The choice to go is a big part of it. The fact that it's freely given. I would love to serve a mission. I hope to do so, when I can. What could be better?
And Bob, I feel like you've judged the original poster rather harshly, calling him immature even now, because of his telling of that story. Have you given up 2 years of your life to service, as the poster did? Why do you feel it's okay for you to judge him and say he fell short then and still falls short of your standards of maturity? Maybe you don't really understand the situation at all! Do you do humanitarian work among prostitutes?
Edit to say this was written before Bob's last post, which I'm still digesting.
[ July 20, 2004, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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posted
Thanks for the financial breakdown, by the way. That's really pretty incredible. $1000 a month!!!
$24,000 saved up to go on a mission?
Holy Carp!
Or are you saying that now everyone just saves the equivalent of $250/month. Still a major sum for a young person to attain unassisted.
Of course, with assistance from the church and family, it would seem more do-able and not be a burden on dthe less monied class of folks.
Wow!
I'm impressed. I don't think that up to the age of 18 I could've saved that much. I suppose if I'd had a goal of something along the lines of a two year trip, I might've done it. But that's a hefty sum for most kids.
Good stuff.
Hey, if I saved up $24,000 could I send someone in my place? Like GWB?
He needs to go on a mission and leave the rest of us alone.
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I don't think Bob was being harsh. I think it was a point to the others who are insisting that RM are more mature than others their age who have not served a mission. Were this true, then the original poster would've had a bit more perspective on what naivete and maturity and humanitarian service really are.
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