posted
I've come across a blog written by a young LDS man away on a mission. Many of the comments are condeming him - to various intensities - for breaking the rules.
posted
Why? Because they should be focusing primarily on their assigned mission parameters -- at all times. Otherwise, they are considered disregarding their work.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Why? Because they should be focusing primarily on their assigned mission parameters -- at all times. Otherwise, they are considered disregarding their work.
In the sense of time management, or spiritual focus?
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I think a blog is different, though. People can't respond to a personal paper journal near so easily.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
RapRonReagan, they are encouraged to keep paper journals and to write letters to friends and family. However, the Internet is considered part of "The World" that they are to stay away from to help them remain focused on time management and spiritual activities.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
So it's the potential communication with the outside world that's the problem, and not the time spent focusing on other things?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
It's the potential for playing on the internet instead of focusing on just communicating with friends and family via e-mail (allowed, but only from public-access computers) and journalling. It's the potential for losing track of time and spending too much on the computer as opposed to focused on mission work, goals, and understanding the scriptures, culture, language (if in a foreign country), etc.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Yes, it is against the rules. They souldn't even be using a telephone, much less a computer.
This is not true anymore. My brother-in-law is on his mission, and he is allowed to use a computer to write and receive letters. Only one day a week, of course.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Oh, he knows he's breaking the rules. Gladly, though, he doesn't post nearly as often as, say, me. His whole mission would likely lose the priveledge of using computers if he gets caught. Wonder if he's realized that yet.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Ok, I don't know that he's doing anything wrong here. It appears he only posts once a week, or longer (meaning he only posts on P-Day) and really, he's not discussing anything all that bad. I would almost guess that he has his mission president's sanction.
Posts: 494 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Ok... he thinks he's doing something wrong, so his mission pres probably doesn't know. However, I have a hard time believing that he can keep this from all of his companions...
Posts: 494 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I'm kind of tempted to think he's not a real missionary, at least not currently in the field. But then, I think maybe he is. But then I think he isn't. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
He's too consistent with his posting to be a fake. All but one post was on a Wednesday afternoon. The one that wasn't was a Saturday evening. I'm sure he's a missionary, and this is just his little rebellion against the rules. He was probably an internet junkie and just couldn't leave it alone. Every missionary has their weak spot. I don't see this as an infraction worse than, say, having long hair.
Posts: 494 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I had companions that did much (much) worse, and still managed to somehow complete an honorable (officially speaking) mission.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote: I had companions that did much (much) worse, and still managed to somehow complete an honorable (officially speaking) mission.
Ditto to that. Our mission president would work with any missionary that showed a repentent attitude. For example, there was a missionary in our mission who had never kissed a girl when he left, but by about halfway through his mission he had kissed many, many girls, and knew all of the local discos like the back of his proverbial hand. After a while he came to his senses and tried to work it out with the mission president. Although he was never the best missionary, he did manage to finish out his mission.
Then there was the missionary that kissed a sister missionary. She was repentent; he was not. She stayed; he got shipped home.
Posts: 194 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:And hey, if he can be an effective missionary and not stray into anything really wrong, I guess that's his business.
It's his mission president's business. This is something his mission president should handle. We don't know if the Prez knows about it or not.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
The comments on his entries remind me of a David O. McKay quote- "every member, a mission president"
Posts: 14 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
A mission isn't monastic seclusion, either. But missionaries are asked to keep contact with the world outside the mission boundaries to a minimum so they don't get distracted. Because it's easy to get distracted. The time spent keeping up the blog could be better spent on mission-related duties. But if he's doing it mostly on p-day (the missionary equivalent of Saturday) then I don't think it's that big a deal.
One of the guys I served with got one or two letters a day from his girlfriend back home. That was very distracting, to the point that he kind of gave up on his missionary duties and just sat in the apartment blaring American patriotic music on his boombox.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
He seems rather pious though. Perhaps it helps him to collect his thoughts and thus making him an even stronger church member... I do not know...
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Preparation Day. Missionaries do missionary work from 9:30 to 9:00 every day, except for one day a week in which to write letters, go shopping, do laundry, nap - that kind of thing. On those days, they study until 9:30 like normal, then can do whatever is within the rules until 6:00, when they do missionary work from 6:00 - 9:00.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Being a former missionary that hated basketball, I think blogging is just as effective of a stress reliever for P-Day as the things other "normal" missionaries do. I don't think it matters much if his mission pres knows as long as it doesn't become an obsession. It's very much like writing a public diary.
Posts: 494 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
If he's just posting the blog and not looking at other websites, I'd consider it the equivalent of keeping a journal. If he's also surfing the web, that would seem to be a violation of the rules as I understand them (which is only from Hatrack, of course.)
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Well, today marks the one-year anniversary of the last time I got some.
This first line made me doubt his missionary status, but then he says he's never been kissed. So I guess he has a different defnition of "getting some" then the rest of us. Odd. Perhaps he means a date?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:that would seem to be a violation of the rules as I understand them (which is only from Hatrack, of course.)
Bear in mind that specific rules for things like this can vary a lot from mission to mission, depending on that attitude of the mission president.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Quite. So if I were the guy's mission president ( ) I'd be fine with him posting a blog, as long as he wasn't also surfing the web.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
When I see the title, I keep wanting to sing the Mormon Primary song "I Hope they Call me on a Mission" as "I Hope I'm Blogging on a Mission" or something like that.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
There is a difference between a paper journal and a blog. Audience. The rules for internet use are email only and the emails have to be personal letters. My bro-in-law had to remind me while on his mission not to forward jokes and such because he could get in trouble. That communication had to be letters to and from family. This blogging elder is not doing himself any good by spending so much time on this. He said he often spends his personal study time writing his blog post. What a waste.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
This kid cracks me up. In his profile there is an application to date him for when he returns from his mission.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote: It's really a shame how people try to misuse the system sometimes. People join the Church just to get church welfare or they get the missionaries to do service for them with aulterior (sp?) motives. Such was the case this last week. We go to help a family rebuild a chicken coop only to find that all we're really doing is giving they're oldest (home schooled) daughter the opportunity to hit on some missionaries in the hope that one might come back and marry her.
Does he seriously think that?
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Probably, and from experience, I'd tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. Though I don't know if it's necessarily misuse of the system. :)
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Speaking of missions, Annie, did you know that the BYU post office has Same-day delivery to the MTC? My sister once sent an entire pizza to my brother in a foil-lined shoebox, and when he got it it was still hot.
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First of all, I have not read any of this guy's stuff.
But from the part you quoted, SM, this doesn't surprise me at all.
I personally saw both of those things (getting baptized in order to take advantage of church welfare and mothers trying to hook their daughters up with the missionaries) happen on my mission.
The first one I only saw once. The second one I saw many, many times.
I remember one family that would have us over every couple of weeks for lunch. They had a teenage daughter. There was always something a little "off" there, but I didn't think too much on it. One day the mother asked me if I thought I could marry a Brazilian. I answered a simple "no" (even though it was not technically true, I was answering what I understood the *real* question to be -- "Could you fall in love with a Brazilian girl on your mission and come back for her?")
Even though they had invited us over at least once every other week up to that point, once I said "no", we were never invited back while I was there. It was pretty obvious why.
posted
I've heard of it happening as well, but that statement, combined with a comment of his about female speakers at Conference, combined with the application to date him when he gets home, make me think he's at best in posession of an overinflated ego, and at worst a future wife-beating masochist.
He just bugs me, for some reason. I can't explain why.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Out of curiousity, how do missionaries usually feed themselves? It sounds like they have little time to cook most days. Do members of the church have them over for dinner?
Also, what does "missionary work" consist of? I would imagine that eventually they'd run out of doors to knock on...
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I think it's a little different depending on your area. If there are more active members willing to feed missionaries, there are less missionaries having to feed themselves.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Out of curiousity, how do missionaries usually feed themselves? It sounds like they have little time to cook most days. Do members of the church have them over for dinner?
It really depends on where you are. Most of the places where I was, the local members invited us over for lunch each day. We took care of our breakfasts and dinners.
Many places here in the states, the members feed dinner to the missionaries. We've had the missionaries over for dinner several times.
In a couple of areas I was in, the members didn't feed us at all, so we took care of it all ourselves.
quote:Also, what does "missionary work" consist of?
It mostly constists of looking for people to teach and teaching. Once again, this varys a lot from place to place.
There were areas in my mission where we spent almost zero time knocking on people's doors -- we were spending all of our time actually teaching people. In other areas, we knocked on a lot of doors.
Sometimes missionaries go to a very public place like a town square and try to just talk to people passing by, or set up a booth to talk to people. I never did that myself, though.
quote:I would imagine that eventually they'd run out of doors to knock on...
Yes and no. Most missionaries are in a single area for no longer than six months. So it is rare for a missionary to run out of doors to knock that are new for him. Again, this vary's wildly from area to area.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Also, in our mission they've made this stupid rule that missionaries MUST be fed at 5:30 ONLY (unless you're having them over for a discussion.) In an area like this where many people don't get home until 6:30 or later, and a large percentage of women work outside the home out of financial necessity, they don't get too many weekday meals any more. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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) I'd be fine with him posting a blog, as long as he wasn't also surfing the web.
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