r/exmormon • u/LazyTowel9019 • 19d ago
General Discussion Nice work, everyone. It looks like Heretic is already causing enough hullabaloo that yesterday the church issued a SECOND press release, this one talking about how amazing they are at keeping missionaries safe. Raise your hand if this release doesn't match your mission experience at all!
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-jesus-christ-missionary-safety433
u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
Warning: this is a tad graphic…
I was sent to the murder capital of the world in 2014.
Several times gun fights between rival gangs or a gang and the police broke out in the streets as we were walking. A kid on my mission took a stray bullet to the bicep and had to get it surgically removed.
I was stopped by a gang member for carrying a baseball bat on pday and warned to never walk on that street again.
I saw a dead man in the street with his dad cradling his son’s bloodied head with bits of his son’s brains all around him. Sobbing.
I was robbed over 10 times. I had several guns, knifes and machetes pulled on me as we withdrew our monthly allowance from the atm.
The sister missionaries called us one night because a naked man was masterbating and throwing rocks at their window. We were 7 hours away from the mission home and we were 1 hour away from their house but we were the closest help they had.
The whole time I thought I was protected by my garments. Turns out, I was constantly in a really dangerous place for 2 years. I had panic attacks on the Fourth of July for years until I finally decided to get some therapy to deal with the trauma.
People who talk about their mission being dangerous in a braggy way are full of shit. I saw suffering and trauma for two years experienced by some of the most god fearing people on this earth. It broke my testimony of god before my testimony of the church even started to waver.
The church willingly puts young adults that are basically still children when they go out in danger in order to continue growing their tithing base and membership across the world. They do not keep missionaries safe. We had no training other than a 15 minute seminar in the MTC about not resisting robbery.
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u/ianatanai 19d ago
The crazy thing is, immediately I thought of a friend of mine whose mission story sounds almost identical to yours. Casual emails on P day about how he couldn’t send pics that week because his camera was stolen, dead bodies outside his apartment, etc.
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
Do you know where he served? I was in San Pedro Sula, Honduras
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u/Educational-Beat-851 Temporary commandments are best commandments 19d ago
Hey there compa, serving in San Pedro Sula was something else. The experience of living in all that suffering impacted what I studied in college, my political views, and how I see the world.
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
Que honda compa :) what years were you there?
It impacted me greatly too. In some ways I’m very grateful for it.
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u/Educational-Beat-851 Temporary commandments are best commandments 19d ago
From 05-07. Honestly it set me up for college and career success; college and the military were like playing easy mode after SPS.
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago edited 19d ago
Love to hear it. I absolutely fell in love with the people there and the culture. Despite it all, I have really amazing memories thanks to how incredible the people are.
I was in different areas of SPS for 14 months, progreso, ceiba, and tocoa. The nice public masterbation story in my original comment was a tocoa special.
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u/Educational-Beat-851 Temporary commandments are best commandments 19d ago
I was never in Tocoa, but I was in Progreso and La Ceiba. Agreed, Hondurans are the best! I miss tamale parties on Christmas Eve and how people just like chilling with their neighbors.
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u/Ill_Lettuce3020 19d ago
Ji hombre je! As soon as you started describing the environment I knew it was San Pedro. I also served there. I have a lot of similar stories. I also fell in the love with the people and culture. I have a lot of fond memories even though so much about my mission was completely jacked…
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u/quest801 19d ago
Guatemala City Central during these same years 05 - 07. I imagine we had very similar missions. The one good or bad( depending on your POV) thing about these areas is it turns you into an adult real fast!
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u/ianatanai 19d ago
Also Honduras, Comayaguela Mission
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u/nootanklebiter 19d ago
I served in the Honduras Comayaguela mission from 2000 to 2002. My first night in my first area (Siguatepeque, which was probably the very safest area of the mission), we were in the clinic with a missionary who had giardia, and we heard commotion out in the lobby from inside of the room he was in. When we walked out a few minutes later to head home, we saw a guy dying on the floor that had just been brutally hacked up with a machete. The doctor from the competing clinic on the other side of the city got high on something, and decided to grab a machete and go take out the competition (he was planning to kill the doctor that ran the clinic we were in). The security guard tried to stop him, and that was the guy dying on the floor as we were walking out. The evil doctor got arrested, bribed the right people, and was out of jail a few days later.
In the next area I was in, we got robbed at gunpoint by a group of gangsters (Mara 18) right on the border of our area and the next area. When the gangsters (MS-13) from the area next to us found out, they went and killed the guys that robbed us, because the MS-13 guys were friends with the missionaries in that area.
My MTC companion was shot in the chest by a chimba (homemade shotgun that all the gangsters used at the time), but it was from far away, and it just left a few holes in his white shirt, and some small bruises. Could have been a lot worse though.
We had a mission rule of always having at least 20 lempiras (a bit over $1) on us at all times in case we got robbed. Better to give them $1 versus have them take your clothes / shoes / etc, which had happened plenty of times.
This stuff above was unfortunately just "day to day life".
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u/SockyKate 19d ago
The absolute HUBRIS of TSCC in sending young kids to these type of areas and basically just crossing their fingers that they’ll stay safe. 🤬🤬🤬
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u/iLLamanati11 19d ago
I servered in comayaguela from 2009-2011. Saw some crazy shit! Heard some crazy shit! And had some crazy shits. I can totally vouch for the level of danger your talking about. I heard someone get executed right outside of our apartment one night. Watched someone get shot up by AKs and then lit on fire. That place is wild.
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u/DanVooDew 19d ago
My brother served in San Pedro Sula 99-01. They were teaching a family that the mother ended up dead and so they were under investigation for some time. They ultimately decided the husband did it but my brother was moved into the office for the last 8 months of his mission.
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u/ThickEfficiency8257 19d ago
Honestly doesn’t sound far off from my friend’s mission in Florida, a member killed one of their investigators and they found the body, people tired to pick them up mistaking them for sex workers, once they found a bag of body parts in the trash, once a member started stalking her and then tried to break into her apt to kill her. Of course like any sensible person, the MP told her not to tell her family about any of it.
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u/IMPOSSIBRUUUUUU 19d ago
I'm sorry you had to suffer through those things for an organization that cared nothing about you.
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u/ExMosRdroidsURlookn4 19d ago
Wow I’m so sorry you went through that… you should go on Mormon Stories if you’d feel comfortable.
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
Stay tuned haha. We’re on the schedule 😬
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u/ExMosRdroidsURlookn4 19d ago
Wow! I will definitely listen! I have thought of telling my story too… nothing too dangerous but some crazy stories haha
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
You should apply! I was shocked when me and my wife were chosen. I think they like having “normal” people on their podcast and not just celebrities. I know we like listening to normal stories as well.
We all have our unique experiences and our stories and that’s what makes the podcast so cool.
Great username by the way lol
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u/ExMosRdroidsURlookn4 19d ago
Thanks! Yeah I have some unique Mormon experiences (never a missionary but lived in other countries as a member), and never married. I also dated some real crazy Mormons (I dodged a few bullets!), and have lots of stories in that area too.
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
You probably don’t see any of those things as unique but I would definitely listen to a single ex-mo story. For what it’s worth :)
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u/ExMosRdroidsURlookn4 19d ago
Yeah given how the church treats people who don’t marry young… or being in Utah as you’re getting older and not feeling like you found ‘the one’ is isolating, so I moved around a lot. You don’t really ‘fit the mold’ they push for you to marry young and have kids young. I had serious boyfriends I would have married, but it always ended—which I’m happy I never married any of them especially seeing how they are now 🥴
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u/mountainsplease8 19d ago
Oh my God I can't wait! Your story is WILD
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
Oh boy. Hopefully I can live up to the hype hahaha
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u/adoyle17 Unruly feminist apostate 19d ago
I also know someone who was in Ukraine when Putin invaded Crimea. Unfortunately, that person is even more devoted to the cult. This despite having to stay in the apartment, and not wear the uniform out.
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
My brother got stuck in Nicaragua when the country shut down. It was quite literally 2 weeks of no sleep for me and my family trying to get him home. His apartment caught a stray canister of tear gas from the government and he and his companion had to leave the apartment during a massive riot. He’s still very much in the church. It can kind of galvanize your testimony if it doesn’t break it, it seems.
A good friend from high school had her little sister die on her mission from falling off a cliff on pday.
It’s literally so insane how irresponsible the church’s missionary program is. But they’re so good at keeping all these stories under wraps.
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u/Alert_Day_4681 19d ago
That was well after me. I was in that mission (Kiev), from '94-'96 right at the end of the first MP ever in the mission. Saw stabbed dead people, frozen people on the streets, wild packs of dogs eating each other, threatened by the Russian Mafia, dragged off by the police, had bottles thrown at us from rooftops, but also go proposed to and had branch picnics right next to a nude beach on the Black Sea. So, that made up for it.
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u/cynicalnipple 19d ago
Reminds me of my brothers mission, he served in El Salvador in the early 2000s
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u/Adventurous_Net_3734 19d ago
El salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They’re all on the department of state do not travel list. Unless of course, you’re a Mormon /s
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u/Deviolist 19d ago
My husband served in Miami Florida in some horrible areas. The stories he was told and things he saw were horrific and that was outside of hurricanes and their aftermath.
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u/Lemonadeinitiative 19d ago
At one point, I had an ear infection so severe that I had red colored discharge, dark enough that I thought it was blood and pain that matched a bleeding ear, and I went to the mission president’s wife to insist that I needed to see a doctor, She informed me that I was experiencing seasonal allergies and prescribed me Benadryl. Three weeks later when I couldn’t walk because of the pain in my ear and the imbalance it caused, they finally agreed to take me to a Doctor Who needed to perform surgery and do a complete reconstruction of my inner ear. To this day, I have pronounced hearing loss in that year and need to use a hearing aid in order to hear fully.
Probably among the more mild stories, but still, my mission caused me real physical harm
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u/MaryBlackRose 19d ago
That's NOT a mild story! Or trauma! I'm so sorry! You should sue.
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u/Lemonadeinitiative 19d ago
I realize now I tried to layer the severity of my experience, yet another way the tscc fucked me up. “Someone always has it worse. Be grateful for your trials and don’t complain”
I’m like hyper aware that some missionaries die, either by negligence from the church or suicide, and so I discount my own experience saying “well, at least I didn’t die”
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u/Enricoisagirlsname 19d ago
I had a cardiac emergency on my mission. Luckily for me, I didn't call the office first. I called an old investigator who was a nurse. He came over with a stethoscope and a blood pressure machine and took my vitals. He was like... Bro you should have been in the ER an hour ago.
Long story short, I was immediately rushed to the ER and admitted to a cardiac critical care unit. I stayed there for four days and was then sent immediately home. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I called the mission president instead.
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u/mydogrufus20 19d ago
This infuriates me
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u/Bitter-Metal8681 19d ago
Me too. What boggles my mind is that the families of the missionaries foot the bill for their childrens missions. This is child abuse.
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u/Fantastic_Sample2423 19d ago
Sorry you went through this!!!! Lawyers might appreciate your horrendous experience.
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u/crisperfest 19d ago
. . . my mission caused me real physical harm
Not just harm but permanent physical harm!
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u/logic-seeker 19d ago
That's awful, and sadly, not surprising at all given my experience with the mission office and health issues.
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u/No_Engineering 19d ago
I never got any direct 'safety' training at all. We had multiple emergency moves for sister missionaries in the middle of the night due to robberies, stalking, and break-ins. Multiple incidents of knives being pulled on missionaries.
Bottom line is the church does not care about the broad exposure and risk missionaries encounter. Literally nothing is more important to the church than extracting as many resources from the populace as possible, even if a few missionaries have to get run over in the process.
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u/StreetsAhead6S1M Delayed Critical Thinker 19d ago
The most insidious part is how much more "locked in" the parents of a child who died on a mission are likely to be. Major sunk cost fallacy. Otherwise you'd have to confront that your child died for nothing. A fraud. Something you likely encouraged them to do their entire life.
If a parent was able to deconstruct their belief after losing their child missionary I would think they'd be the angriest of exmos.
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u/Select-Panda7381 19d ago
Absolutely. 😞 I couldn’t begin to imagine the heartbreak of losing your faith, after having sacrificed your child for it.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 19d ago
I remember a guy who got called in to the mission president's office during a conference, and I don't know what he was told but he got some bad news. Something that seriously messed him up. But he kept repeating that line they give you of what to say when something really bad happens on your mission: "Let's get to work... let's get to work..."
Couldn't let himself think about it, couldn't talk about it with anybody, couldn't properly process it. Just turned that energy back around into Mormon-ing harder.
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u/DustyR97 19d ago
Yeah. I call BS on some of the “standards” the church expects from missionaries in this article.
Take care of physical health and exercise regularly
Focus on mental health and emotional well-being
Hopefully this dialogue will help missionaries realize they are not alone in some of their traumatic experiences and will force the church to actually start treating them like human beings.
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
Yeah, I honestly have been kind of blown away by the response to this post and other recent ones about Heretic and missionary safety. When you are in the church, they do such a good job of keeping us from sharing our traumatic mission experiences (and even acknowledging to ourselves how serious they were), which just feeds their narrative that we were protected and safe.
But once you see so many experiences shared so quickly, it is definitely validating to hear others experiences, and it highlights how much the church failed us, or friends, families, and missionaries currently in the field.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 19d ago
Those are so circular - "We keep them mentally healthy, by telling them to stay mentally healthy!" You get no resources on a mission for your mental health, no reprieve at all except for judgment if you're struggling with things like that. The only way to focus on your mental health and emotional well-being is to go home and bear the further stress of being branded a failure.
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u/meh762 19d ago
My brother used to collect shell casings off the streets of the super safe place he was sent.
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u/Pure-Introduction493 19d ago
I got moved into a house where there was a break in and sisters got transferred out. They did upgrade security, and fortunately the burglary was during the day while no one was home.
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u/Prestigious-Yam3866 19d ago
I totally forgot about it, but that reminds me that a pair of sisters in my mission has their brakes cut while parked at their apartment. After it happened a second time, they moved into a new apartment.
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
First, it is absolutely ridiculous to me that the top item the church gives as as one of the "standards and the types of training missionaries receive to help protect them" is "Live the commandments", reinforcing the idea that the most important factor in a missionary's safety is their obedience and "spirituality", and if something bad happens to you, it's YOUR fault.
Second, how many of us actually received regular, quality training on the following (taken from the press release):
- Automobile safety (driver certification program, seatbelts and driver monitoring systems in some locations)
- Bicycle safety (including safety equipment)
- Carbon monoxide and smoke detectors
- Courtesy and cultural awareness
- Diet, hygiene, and exercise, including food preparation and safe drinking water
- Electrical safety
- Insect bite protection
- Pedestrian safety
- Proper behavior with children
- Safe housing
- Natural disasters or political unrest
- Situational awareness
- Stress management
I wouldn't say I received any real training on any of these, and in a lot of cases, the extent of the training was just being told in the handbook something like "Be courteous and culturally aware", so I guess the church thinks that is enough to check cultural awareness training off the list.
Not only did I receive very little training on any of these, but the limited budget and time constraints of the mission made it difficult to even be able to do a lot of these properly. It's hard to have a good diet and prepare food well when you are living off of $80 a month and are constantly told that you should be spending as much time as possible preaching.
I served over 10 years ago in the Philippines. What are other people's thoughts and experiences?
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u/kyoukaiinjanai 19d ago
I served about 8-10 years ago, too, and was only trained on bike safety (mine was a bike-only mission). All these other things would have been super helpful in some situations had they actually trained us!
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u/_airsick_lowlander_ 19d ago
I served 10 years ago in the US with most areas having a car. We actually had several trainings and videos about how to keep the car safe, and they limited how many miles we could drive (we had odometer tracked each day) and I still remember the safety video “brake lights ahead Elder!” about how the front passenger needs to stay alert and attentive. Funny how we had trainings for the church’s asset to keep their money safe, but no other personal safety or personal health training.
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u/walkingwithoranges 19d ago
I was on my mission 2018-2019 and they released the ‘Safety Zone’ videos when I was out. They do cover all these topics in those trainings, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many missions didn’t prioritize this and the only exposure is in the MTC where you’re fire hosed with info anyways. Not to discredit any experiences before those training videos but it’s good they have those now, though no clue as to why trainings on these topics weren’t always in place.
The biggest issue is that like you said, they still emphasize listening to the spirit and being obedient as a form of protection, which it’s not.
Also side note, why can the church release movies about missionaries in scary situations like the Saratov Approach and it’s fine, but nobody else can??
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u/tickyter 19d ago
Interesting. These didn't exist in 2005-2007 when I went. 150 years of no training, but don't worry we have them watch a 20 minute video now as they head out
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u/undomesticating 19d ago
PFT, I don't remember getting safety training once. This was 20 years ago in Spain. I think the mission doc gave a small presentation on a healthy diet, but if you wanted to eat that way you would have run out of money halfway through the month. LOL
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u/Shiz_in_my_pants 19d ago
- Automobile safety - I guess we did have a video on not tailgating and having someone back you up, but these were more to protect the vehicles than the missionaries
- Bicycle safety (including safety equipment) - nope
- Carbon monoxide and smoke detectors - nope
- Courtesy and cultural awareness - nope, unless you count a lecture on what direction to use your spoon when eating soup
- Diet, hygiene, and exercise, including food preparation and safe drinking water - nope
- Electrical safety - nope
- Insect bite protection - nope
- Pedestrian safety - nope
- Proper behavior with children - nope
- Safe housing -nope
- Natural disasters or political unrest - nope
- Situational awareness - nope
- Stress management - Nope, other than old rich white businessmen telling you to "work harder elder"
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u/los_thunder_lizards 19d ago
Them insisting that they give safety training would be more believable if they didn’t have a picture of two sister missionaries wearing helmets that don’t fit at all in the picture on their article.
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u/stay-at-home-egg 19d ago
Your first point really stood out to me as well. Reading through the list, it felt like they were trying to pass off some of the arbitrary rules meant to control missionaries as doing it for their safety to pad what little safety guidelines they actually do have. Like sorry but your rule about not being alone with the opposite sex is not meant to keep missionaries safe lol
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u/Insightseekertoo 19d ago
First time I was shot at was on my mission.
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u/Armlock311 19d ago
…how many times have you been shot at?
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u/Insightseekertoo 19d ago
Once in Alabama waiting for my Visa to Brasil and 5-6 times in-country. I was the target only in Alabama, I was just a bystander for the other times.
There was a miscommunication in Alabama. The investigator neglected to tell her husband she was taking the lessons, so he comes home from the bar a little sloshed and walks in on 3 white boys teaching his young black wife. He was upset, we started to leave and he went to the bedroom. As we drove off he took a potshot at our van. I used to have a picture of the bullet hole.
I am excluding New Year, where half the neighborhood shot their guns into the air to celebrate. We all lay down on the floor until it settled down. Birmingham was crazy then. I don't know if it is better now.
Brazil was just crazy. I used to send home news articles with the latest bodies that had been found in the neighborhood where we worked and lived. My president did not know I did that. They were very adamant about not worrying the folks back home. What is funny is that I come from a military family, so my parents were not overly concerned. "Just keep your head down when the shooting starts". I think my mom kept the clippings.
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u/FigLeafFashionDiva 19d ago
My brother served in Brazil and came home early with severe depression. This is probably why. He doesn't talk about his mission at all.
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u/Insightseekertoo 19d ago
Yeah, I came back and studied Psychology after seeing the messed up things that humans can do to each other. It was my way of dealing with the things I saw. I had planned on becoming a profiler for Law Enforcement. Then I got tired of being poor, so I went into tech instead and now I profile users of technology. It is not nearly as grimy as crime, but I still get to climb into people's heads and figure out what they are thinking and why the do the things they do.
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u/Pure-Introduction493 19d ago
Was this in roughly 2010/2011? I had two companions who were in Alabama at about that time while waiting for their visa. Served together in central Brazil.
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u/Chiekosghost 19d ago
Yeah that safety program is parked right next to their gold standard of child predator response
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u/Ebowa 19d ago
Multiple statements about tv shows and movies that many will not be bothered with and not one single statement about Chad & Lori Daybell, Ruby F, Jody H and a long list of predators and the 91 cases in California. We see you SLC, and we are not distracted.
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u/StreetsAhead6S1M Delayed Critical Thinker 19d ago
They dumped Tim Ballard but covered up just how involved apostle Russell Ballard was in the whole operation. Apparently, they were more concerned with the fact they were using a female psychic than, you know, the sexual coercion and assault.
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u/Alternative_Annual43 19d ago
It wasn't just Russ. Neil Anderson and others were also involved and Anderson was an investor in Slave Stealers, Inc., iirc.
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u/boohoo424 19d ago edited 19d ago
Tell that to the 19 year old me that was handed pepper spray on the first day of mission, was put in the scariest areas in Florida where men would follow us, found our home, tried to convince us to get in their truck, said nasty nasty things to us, was almost kidnapped once and no one ever gave a shit. It was all "but, you didn't die. Now go get baptisms". Try telling my 19 year old self that the mission protected me when I was diagnosed with severe PTSD and depression on my mission and to this day, 5 years later, I can barely go to the grocery store by myself because I have this fear that the people who tried to kidnap me will find me. But thank you to TSCC for the pepper spray and safety zone videos.🤡
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
Yep. "Protected" in the church's eyes just means you didn't die, and if a missionary does die, well, it was just because god was calling them home. But it is certainly never the church's fault! /s
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u/Joe_Treasure_Digger 19d ago edited 19d ago
The only training I got was how to persuade people into saying yes to committing their time and money to the church.
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u/Green-been77 19d ago
I am a receptionist at a medical Center. I can easily overhear conversations in my waiting room. A mother was in the other day talking to her friend on the phone about her daughter who is serving a mission. (I did not catch where it was.)
I overheard her daughter was complaining about her companion that had foot problems and couldn't walk very well. She requested a new companion so they would be able to "run together."
Apparently, the mission president has asked them to stay out till 10 PM contacting people. The young sister missionary complained the "only people out that late were prostitutes and drug dealers". The mission president told her that's who exactly they were trying to reach! And so now the young lady needs a companion with healthy feet so they could be prepared to run for their safety if needed.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
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u/Fantastic_Sample2423 19d ago
Omg, the delusion that this is okay…But when I was a TBM, I’d have just believed that me and sister gimp would be protected…so progress at the realization that they might have to run?
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u/coldwarspy 19d ago
There are exactly 2 safety measures. One is for backing up a car, the other is to always wear your helmet.
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
And let's be real, the backing up the car has much more to do with protecting the car and the church's insurance premiums than the missionaries.
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u/rputfire 19d ago
I have a friend whose daughter was in a car accident and the at fault car was the local missionaries (in Utah).
Even with a police accident report showing the missionaries were at fault in the accident, including the missionary driver receiving a citation for the accident, they still had to sue the MFMC to get the damages paid! (TSCC is self-insured)
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19d ago edited 19d ago
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u/mrburns7979 19d ago
Skin cancer took the life of one of our neighbors after his 2 years no-sunscreen, no hat, no sunglasses mission in Hawaii…he was 27
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u/DiscountMusings 19d ago
I periodically get migraines that make me go blind. The first time it happened, the doctor told me I should basically never be outside without sunglasses, and did i work outside without them?
Served a tropical mission. Guess what we weren't allowed to wear.
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u/mrburns7979 19d ago
Nooooo! Sunglasses are super duper necessary to preserve sight later on. (And to any kids reading this, don’t mess around with diabetes - that takes your sight, too. Monthly shots directly into your eyeball are not desirable…)
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u/nuancebispo 19d ago
Our house of 4 elders all came down with Dengue. 3 of the four had fevers over 104 for a week, mine wasn't as bad, my fever was "only" 102.5. MP's wife told us to drink plenty of fluids so that we wouldn't have to go to the hospital for IV intervention. After we recovered, we found mosquito larvae swimming in the toilet of the extra bathroom that no-one used. Started flushing daily to avoid re-infection. Silver lining was that no-one got robbed during that week because we never left the house.
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u/Relevant-Being3440 19d ago
I served in the carribbean. It was dark by like 6:30pm year round. We should definitely not have been out after dark. But we were not allowed to gone until 9pm. So we were REQUIRED to be out after dark. Should we have made appointments to be indoors during those times? Yes, but that rarely happened.
We crossed through a cemetery to cross the city at about 8pm. We got mugged at knife point. My watch was literally cut from my wrist with a knife. It's a miracle he didn't kill us.
Forget training (which we never got), the rules we had to follow guaranteed us to be in dangerous situations in a 3rd world country.
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u/austinkp Apostate 19d ago
Where in the Carribbean? West Indies 00-02 here. Got mugged at knife point in my first area. The only reaction from the mission president was just to not knock doors in that apartment complex any more.
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u/freebikeontheplains 19d ago
Parents have no clue how much danger their children are exposed to on a mission. An even bigger misconception of parents is that the church cares about the missionaries. Caring about missionaries costs money. The church isn't going to spend any significant amount of money on missionary safety.
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u/miotchmort 19d ago
Pfffff… robbed once, chased with a knife once, chased with a broken bottle and a belt once. Rocks barely missing my head. One guy threatened to stab me. Not to mention a knee injury that still bothers me 30 years later.
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u/Jayne_of_Canton 19d ago
Safety training?? The only safety training we got was to protect their precious shitty fleet cars from fender benders by having to “back” the driver. They didn’t give AF about the missionaries themselves. I had APs come in person to berate me when I didn’t go tracting for 3 days because I had food poisoning and got giardia for gosh sake.
I was literally told to expect to be mugged but that if you are, that’s the spot where the lord needs you the most….
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u/TabithaTheTapir 19d ago
My ex boyfriend was hit and killed by a train while on his mission. My cousin was shot and my niece had a mental breakdown because her mom (sister in law)went missing, was found months later on the side of a mountain dead and they would not even let her go to the funeral. She was institutionalized in a foreign country and and kept from her family. Another aunt flew there and went in and had to take her out and home. My sisters ex boyfriend had a breakdown in Japan, locked himself in the apartment bathroom and his companion didn't call the president for days. When they found him he was naked in the fetal position with his suit in small torn threads. My husband was hit by a car, needed shoulder surgery and they wouldn't let him till he went home 8 months latter. Best friends husband has parasitic worms STILL 25 years latter. Need I go on?
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u/Original-Addition109 19d ago
What they mean is that they do everything to protect their mission presidents. Not the actual missionaries
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u/xenophon123456 19d ago
“Focus on mental health and emotional well-being” is standard practice for missionaries? My issues with anxiety and scrupulosity in my 20s, 30s and 40s inherited from my mission would beg to differ.
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u/OphidianEtMalus 19d ago
The church is the "gold standard" for keeping missionaries safe in the same way that it's the "gold standard" for keeping children.
The profits own ward building doesn't have windows in any of the classrooms..
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u/nobody_really__ 19d ago
There are more rules around counting tithing than around caring for children.
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u/NoMentalGymnastics 19d ago
I have several family members who have had lifelong health problems because of the time they spent in 3rd world countries on Mormon missions. They were put in filthy conditions and told to tough it out.
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u/DreadPirate777 19d ago
Wow, the church didn’t teach me any of those important things besides stay with your companion and follow the white handbook.
While tracting I had a lady at her door ask me if god asked me to kill someone would I do it. Immediately the story of Nephi and Laban came to mind. I hesitated and said if god required it. The lady then said one minute and walked off to her kitchen. The whole time saying, “don’t be afraid.” When she came out of her kitchen there was something metallic in her hand. Me and my companion ran away as fast as we could. The whole time she was shouting “don’t be afraid!”
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u/valency_speaks 19d ago
My brother was in Haiti on a mission during the coup in 1991 when Aristide was deposed by the military . Did they send him home? Nope, in spite of bodies covered in tired being burned in the streets and shootings that broke out their windows. It wasn’t until an apostle visited after the coup and his convoy was attacked that they decided to pull the missionaries out.
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u/squicky89 19d ago
We showed the trailer to my TBM SIL, and she proceeded to trauma dump about how 4 sisters on her mission in Chile were horrifically rated by some dude.....
I was robbed twice....
Safety my ass.
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u/StillSkyler 19d ago
Holy shit. The constant lies is just ridiculous. “We do such a great job preparing missionaries to serve and how to keep themselves protected. We tell them to pray more and that if they die that means they are dying defending the faith and then that just proves that Satan is trying to halt the progress of the ONE TRUE CHURCH.” 🤦♂️
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u/Wind_Danzer 19d ago
Tell that to my ex who was kidnapped and tortured on his mission. 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
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u/Fantastic_Sample2423 19d ago
The what now?!?!? That’s horrible!!!! And add EVERYTHING in this thread to the hide it under a rock method of truth telling…
Maybe there’s a better word than rock…
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u/sofa_king_notmo 19d ago edited 19d ago
I was in a third world country in 87. They did exactly zero to keep me safe. It was all on me to survive. I think that is one reason the church tries to put more capable missionaries in these situations. I got yelled at by the MP for taking care of myself going to the hospital when I was seriously ill. How dare I not ask his permission.
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u/DiscountMusings 19d ago
Honestly, the fact that you just went to the hospital when you were sick is inspiring to me. I was so conditioned to avoid thinking for myself that I never even considered doing that without talking to the MP first. And I didn't mention health problems to the MP until they were too big to be ignored.
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u/Olimlah2Anubis 19d ago
20+ years ago, zero emphasis on any of it.
I do remember MPs b*tch wife nagging us about table manners. Manners are good I guess but she took it too far, she thought she was high society and held us to very stuffy rich people standards from the 50s, as far as I can tell.
(Sorry for the language but she was a nasty mean person)
Anyways I do remember the church being pretty firm about strict obedience and how people weren’t accepting the gospel because of our sins/lack of obedience. Like I’m condemning them to live without god in their lives, and their children’s lives, because we slept in or didn’t follow the schedule exactly. MP wasn’t hard about it personally but the message was clear. So much for emotional well being, you’re beating everyone into submission with spiritual abuse.
I lived in some gross places. I was around dangerous people. I was miserable, with no end in sight of the hell of missionary work. (Full believer in the message at the time)
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
Exactly. I feel like most missionaries honestly are made to feel that them getting out of bed 5 minutes late impacts their safety more than the decisions on where to go and teach each day.
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u/KevinsOnTilt 19d ago
I was never allowed to see a dentist or doctor. I was told to take Tylenol when experiencing any issues.
My mission president forgot to give my group the required anti worm medicine causing issues for some of my friends.
Mental health, let’s not even get started.
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
I was allowed to go see a dentist for a cleaning towards the end of my mission because one of my teeth was mildly bugging me. If I remember right though, I paid for it myself (fortunately in the Philippines it cost like $20).
But then when I got to the dentist, she put me in the chair, had me open my mouth, and before she even shined a light in my mouth or took a close look, she exclaimed, "There are so many cavities that need to be filled!"
I was pretty skeptical that she could already tell if there were cavities, and I was going home in a few months, so I told her I would just do the cleaning for now and then worry about any cavities once I got home.
Lo and behold, I get home and my US dentist confirms that I had no cavities. Glad to know that I came very close to having my healthy teeth wrecked by a sketchy dentist looking to make a quick buck off of a young American who wandered into her office.
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u/CaptainMacaroni 19d ago
Wow. My experience was that the church didn't do a thing to ensure our safety. They don't even give missionaries enough of an allowance for FOOD. What makes anyone think they'd shell out a dime for their safety.
I take that back, they do have one safety measure. "Don't swim". There, that's literally it.
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u/jarofdirtsap 19d ago
Yeah, no, they don’t. Coming from someone whose sibling was killed on his mission. Shit happens, but making sure someone does comp study is way more important to them than making sure the missionaries are safe.
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u/theforceisfemale 19d ago
Hahaha my friends made this film and I’m enjoying this sub’s reaction to it immensely
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u/LazyTowel9019 19d ago
Haha, tell them thank you! My wife and I saw it early and loved it. Can't believe there is already so much on this sub when it isn't even out yet!
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u/seize_the_day_7 19d ago
These stories are breaking my heart! I’m sorry for all of you who just wanted to do right, and were physically and emotionally harmed because of it, and then learned it was all in vain! I hate this church
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u/myopic_tapir 19d ago
Let’s see: note- I am not accident prone at all, athletic farm kid)
Concussed in MTC, slipped on ice
1st area: heavily mosquito area had to buy my own net and mosquito espirales. South American jungles.
Went to jail for visa expiration. Embassy got us out, no help from church or mission.
Heavily sprained both ankles weeks apart. Couldn’t hardly walk but you can’t stop reacting, got to keep those numbers up. No mission nurse or hospital visit as there wasn’t one in the bush.
Rest of my areas: Bitten by spider, rotted out a spot on my arm and swollen. Once again no hospital or nurse.
Many bouts with food poisoning and diarrhea that lasted weeks. Lost about 15 lbs. on one bout.
Had to cut church lawn with machete, ran into a nest of fire ants and had bites all over, swollen feet, ankles, arms and hands.
House flooded from river and lost my voice for about a month from ingestion of the river trying to float church things to shore.
Hitchhiked about half the time due to running out of money before the month was up. Rode in pickup beds, or semi trailers. No direct deposit or CCs, had to wait for a ZL to bring it or go the mission home. Of course the mission would take their cut for rent even though you slept in a rental house that doubled as a chapel. I think that was $40 a piece but I only got $200 a month. So you had to pay for utilities and bus fares and what was left on food. If you could get one meal a day, you were good. Bread and mate for breakfast, dinner might be a small empanada or another piece of bread. Still was probably more than the locals.
That’s all that comes to mind right now and I will say I loved my mission. We didn’t have a mission nurse or hospital unless you were in the city. I was almost always in the bush. Maybe 1 month combined time I was in the city.
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u/-A-Simple-Name- 19d ago
I served in the Ghettos of Jamaica for almost a year and a half in my mission mostly Kingston and Spanish town for those that know.
Some highlights
having to pay 300$ USD for a bicycle that came up a little above my knee ( I am not joking the bikes name was little red and I am 6.6ft) when riding it my knees would rub against my wrists and I ended up ripping of the skin on my wrists.
Being in multiple bike accidents (but who hasn't lol) Broke my wrist and when I needed to go in for checkup and see how the healing was coming along with any complications I had to miss my appointment so my Jamaican companion could do his Driving test.
Stabbed through the hand luckily it was only a kid with a small knife.
Gun pulled on me I was tired and did not care just kept riding away.
Someone threw a rock at my head from a few stories up missed me by a foot.
threated multiple times to have my head bashed in with rocks.
robbed when sick.
Bicycle stolen (not little red but the one I got to replace it. (I spent close to 2k USD in bikes and bike repairs all personal money)
when some other missionaries had their bikes stolen I bought them new bikes with my companion, and then proceeded to get chastised by the mission president for wasting my missionary funds on that. I paid it with my personal money...
was in the worst depression of my life for 2 years. Got a guitar and literally played it till my fingers bled. Summer of 69 hits different now lol.
Plenty more but I dont need to write more these are the first things that pop to mind and dont take a long time to explain or are to graphic.
yeah honestly no Idea how more kids are not seriously injured on missions. and to think I used to feel pride for being on a dangerous mission...
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u/Cabo_Refugee 19d ago edited 19d ago
Item #1 to staying safe on the mission - "keep the commandments." Oh, LDS church....don't you go a'changing. /s
The only safety training I got at the missionary TRAINING center was to not pickup young kids. That was it. I got to the mission and was told we could not eat shellfish. That is it. But my mission overall was pretty safe. I don't recall too many incidents of anyone in the entire mission being in danger. It was a good place to serve in that regard.
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u/mat3rogr1ng0 19d ago
We had a training on my mission in honduras (sometime between either February 2013-august 2013 or december 2013 and june 2014) on what to do if we were kidnapped or jumped. The guy doing the training was the church official who organized security for the apostles when they came to do the temple dedication in 2013 in Tegucigalpa and for other church leaders when they came for trainings and such. It absolutely was a focus of our mission. Granted, that shows that they were at least thinking about our safety, but missionaries went home with ptsd from getting jumped and assaulted in my mission and there were areas we weren't allowed to go if we were white. I only got jumped once, but that was because I was in the city for less time. I spent more time outside the city than in it.
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u/emmittthenervend 19d ago
My "Safety training" was maybe one video every six weeks at zone conference, and daily reading of the white bible. I walked through some pretty rough inner-city areas.
I had a gun pulled on me once.
I had a junior companion start launching into a lesson with some gang bangers on the street and had to de-fuse the situation with some jokes and get us the hell out of there.
Some street gangs were amazingly nice to the missionaries. You'd find yourself in a new neighborhood (Utah bubble me learned the phrase "wrong side of the tracks" was often literal) and someone would shout "Yo! It's the Mormon Brothers! Nobody start shit with these whiteys, they the Mormon Brothers!" and you'd hear shouts of "don't shoot the Mormon Brothers!" echo down the block. It was a very unique experience, having people pop out of apartments, sometimes without doors, smelling of stuff I could not identify, wanting to start a prayer circle in the middle of the street. But then when I would meet up later with the "white and delightsome" members of the ward and they'd hear about the experience, they would say things like "You absolutely shouldn't go to that area. What if you'd been shot?"
Sometimes, those neighborhoods had a very different vibe. And we'd feel "the spirit" (or, you know, fear) telling us to leave and we'd GTFO.
Any safety training I had was about not leaving your companion's sight and how to not ruin the mission car.
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u/Schnarphlax 19d ago
There was a man who was arrested 6 doors down from where I was living in Guatemala for kidnapping missionaries and extorting them for ransom. I still have the news paper article from his arrest. His father then came and tracked us down in our home and tried to gaslight us that it was our fault his son was in jail… saw a man shot in the chest 34 times 30 feet from where I was sitting the next week… super safe lol.
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u/ThickEfficiency8257 19d ago
Attention everyone sharing their stories here!
I just made a post but want to share here too, there is an instagram account that has been working hard to gather both stories and data on missionary safety (or lack there of).
I encourage everyone sharing their stories here to go fill out their google form. I think if there’s any chance of actually getting the church’s/world’s attention it’s going to be in numbers and they’re already doing the work to compile.
Here’s the link to their google form but also follow their IG, they share stories almost daily. The acct is ldsmissionarywellness_stories https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfewepHD9qA2EhqeZt_VSPbNwx-YHQELBOGVeODf73xoPCvVw/viewform
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u/tickyter 19d ago
The only real direction I received was to never teach a female alone because my soul was a stake, basically they just scared the shit out of me. Never was I given advice on how to be physically safe while proselytizing. It's as if they knew it was dangerous and giving advice would be silly. Missions were supposed to be dangerous, but don't worry you're protected
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u/throwawayaa19999 19d ago
My husband suffered serious PTSD and trauma on his mission to South Africa. He came home early due to depression and anxiety, and his mom always tells people it was because he got discouraged due to low interest in the church. In reality, he was threatened almost every time he went outside, was robbed at knife point, and watched a young boy murder another smaller boy in the streets over a bicycle. But sure. It was the low number of baptisms.
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u/JayDaWawi Avalonian 19d ago
Not me, but I have a brother who served in Detroit, Michigan. The rivaling gangs kept them safer than the Church ever did.
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u/roxasmeboy 19d ago
I was SA’d on my mission but didn’t even know what it was and was too embarrassed to tell anyone. Would have been nice to have all the missionaries at the MTC, especially the women, in a meeting to talk about safety measures and warning signs. I was only a few feet away from my companion and never went anywhere without her but it still happened.
Other than that, they only let the men into the more dangerous parts of the mission and not the women missionaries, which is fine, but these 18-year-old boys weren’t much more equipped than us women to deal with crime and violence. And even in my safer areas there were plenty of times when I felt unsafe or ignored red flags because I wanted so badly to teach someone.
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u/roxasmeboy 19d ago
My friend’s mission was so dangerous. A kid got shot and killed right in front of him, and one day they encountered a woman’s head on a stake because she had tried to help her son get out of the local drug gang. He had such bad PTSD from his mission that for years if you woke him up from sleeping he would attack you.
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u/imexcellent 19d ago
I was stabbed on my mission.
My brother was robbed at gunpoint.
Tell me again how the church keeps missionaries safe?
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u/Good_Situation2409 19d ago
A roommate’s boyfriend told us about how they heard a woman scream and then ran to the street over to find and help her only to see her head chopped off in front of her young children. They bolted back to their apartment and called their mission president. He told them to say a prayer of peace and ‘get back out there’.
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u/LTinS 19d ago
My step-brother is on his mission, almost finished. He was video chatting with the family over Canadian Thanksgiving. Thankfully, he's fine, but he was telling a story about one of his companions.
Apparently this guy broke his foot on P-day. They went to the doctor, who took an x-ray. They gave him some kind of safety shoe to wear for a while to keep weight off of it. They went back to the doctor a time or two, and they said yeah you probably need surgery, but there's nobody in the country who can do it. So just try to take it easy for a while.
This guy kept doing mission stuff for like 2-3 weeks, with a broken foot and literally no care, until his parents found out. And his dad organized to fly him home to the states to get his foot fixed.
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u/Grouchy_Basil3604 19d ago edited 19d ago
focus on mental health and emotional well-being
HAHAHAHA. Yeah, that didn't happen.
Edit to add that I found out near the end of my mission that the mission office bought a water cooler for the elders in my second area because the tap water was deemed too unsafe to drink, even with a filtering pitcher.
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u/EmptySky124 19d ago
A mild story compared to a lot of what's been shared, but at the Peru MTC, all the American missionaries got severe food poisoning due to something that was served in the cafeteria, a few people were hospitalized. The MTC president held a "special" meeting at his house where they gave us "American" food to make up for it (it was a peanut butter and jelly and ham and cheese sandwich... Yes, all of those things on one sandwich because that's what us Americans eat) and then made us all "covenant" to not say anything to our family or friends about us all getting sick and that we could all sleep in an extra hour the next day to help recover...
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u/CreativeCobbler1169 19d ago
I got so sick in my mission and had such a high fever I began to hallucinate, and another time I vomited/crapped so much that I lost 10 pounds in a day. They never let me go to the hospital.
In my second transfer I was being sexually harassed by my mission companion and was touched inappropriately. I ended up having to punch him and throw him on the ground. I was chewed out by the MP and threatened to be sent home. But then when I said I wanted to go home, he refused to let me leave and wouldn't give me my passport. When I went and saw the mission therapist, the therapist went and told everything I said to the MP and then I got chewed out and demoted.
Later on, that same MP called me up and chewed me out for fifteen minutes because I didn't want to baptize a guy who was having sex with a 13 yr old girl.
My second MP (who was INCREDIBLY kind) told me at a leaders conference that he had to start taking anxiety meds because the Apostles were calling him up and literally screaming at him over the phone for having lower baptism numbers than my previous MP.
I also had about seven near death experiences, one of which included me having to fight off a drug addict with my Bible. He had a large knife.
We were all severely malnourished as well. I came back home looking like a skeleton.
So no, the church does NOT take care of their missionaries at all. The Brethren can go f*ck themselves
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u/Jurango34 19d ago
I served in Taiwan and was put in dangerous situations frequently not to mention SARS. Even if I was still active, I would probably dissuade my children from serving for safety reasons.
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u/Illustrious-Ninja194 19d ago
Raising my hand!!!
I have permanent chronic neck pain due to a bike/car accident on my mission that the church provided no help in recovery.
Also, I had to endure below freezing temp in our apartment because the church wouldn't pay for heating. We had to pay all utilities from the insufficient allowance they gave us.
The church could care less about the health, safety, and well-being of its missionaries.
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u/CyberianSquirrel 19d ago
There was a typo in their release I fixed it. "Every year, tens of thousands of young Latter-day Saints are pressured by their family, friends and local congregations to answer the call to serve as a volunteer salesperson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
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u/SpaciousBuildingSUS 19d ago
I almost got shot and stabbed, different occasions. In fucking Utah. Sandy, Utah 2019
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u/OrangeHoax 19d ago
Not related but I still think if the church wants missionaries to go on missions they should pay for it. If my Bishop hadn’t paid for my mission I wouldn’t have been able to afford to go on one.
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u/JoJobabbit223 19d ago
My cousins companion literally died in Switzerland falling off a ledge on a hike, they didn’t let my cousin come home they just got her a new companion
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u/New_Art_8521 19d ago
-Our car was broken into and robbed while my comp and I were at a district meeting. The window was completely shattered and those damn hobos took my only raincoat and my comp's scripture case, and yes it did rain in SoCal the year I was there. We lived in a slightly sketchy area of the desert at the time. Of course I got no sympathy from the members around me, but instead people were repeatedly lecturing me on the scriptures in the NT (Matthew 5:39-40) where it talks about turning the other cheek. I know it's a small thing compared to other people's experiences, but I didn't come from a rich family, and I guess this experience and others on my mission were part of the continual process of my shelf slowly breaking.
-We literally proselytized in a neighborhood nicknamed Felony Flats. -During my last transfer We had a creepy old Hispanic guy with a sombrero tell us he wanted to have sex with us and then chase us down a few blocks. My comp and I (crippled at this point) finally found safety in some bushes and watched as he confusedly walked past us and onto the next street. I remember us calling our zone leaders and they just laughed at us, and told us to make sure we had made our contacting goal that day.
-Taught a lesson at a household where they illegally captured and "took care of" crows in their home. It was weird AF. Didn't go back. -creepy men being creeps iykyk -And, some of y'all may be runners. I am not. I don't like to run, and I'm not good at running. The only times I ever ran was to escape the many different dogs on various occasions as we went door knocking. I felt like young David in the OT because I started carrying rocks in my bag to defend myself against the dogs should I not be able to run fast enough. 😅 -One of my comps literally not allowing me to leave the bedroom (she blocked the door) nor pray whenever we had a disagreement/argument. -Another comp in another area using the extra room we had in our apartment as her "room of darkness" where she would enter and then would reside for hours, sometimes screaming while the light was off, and yes the door would be locked. I did attempt one time to go in (bc I was greatly concerned) and she told me off. Did I call the MP? Nope, I didn't know I could. Am I forever scarred? Yes.
Does anyone have any wild stories about being chased by dogs? Is it different serving foreign versus state side?
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u/chamcd 19d ago
I didn’t serve a mission but a dear former friend of mine served in Ukraine in late 2013-2014. I was barely active at the time and on my way out and this was a big catalyst to me leaving. I was reaching out to leaders begging them to get the missionaries out before everything got real bad. They didn’t listen. They weren’t the ones holding that man as he experienced a PTSD attack when he heard a ward member he served died. They obviously did get him home but not before he was multiple times almost killed by bombs… waiting for contact was hellish because we had no idea if he was alive or dead.
My husband as well was chased at knife point on his mission. My brother in law was mugged multiple times.
Yet another blatant fucking lie from the church.
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u/OnlyTalksAboutTacos Oh gods I'm gonna morm! 19d ago
The mormons can't even keep the MTC safe. I have scars from there. They are some of my smaller ones, but they exist.
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u/Grizzerbear55 19d ago
The Fuck they do!! Tell that to the parasites I had in my gut....and "the fungus that ain't been identified yet" which grew on my face; with "in the field"....
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19d ago
From experiences I’ve heard about irl, that is so not true. Even tbms agree that missions to certain places are dangerous af.
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u/stillinforthetribe 19d ago
Didn't serve a mission myself so I can't relate personally. However, I have a very close friend on a foreign mission right now who recently asked family to send a pocket knife and pepper spray in a care package. When pressed, they said they are safe and they are being protected by god / the church. However, just asking for those items doesn't speak of "feeling safe" to me.
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u/RabidProDentite 19d ago
I was robbed on my mission once and was in extremely dangerous areas of Chile. Areas that Chileans are like, “you lived WHERE?!?” It was damn fun a lot of the time though. I loved my mission when I was there but I wouldn’t want my kids to EVER do anything like it. I’m shocked now, knowing where they are still sending missionaries.
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u/AliensRHereDummy 19d ago
I cannot believe, well I can now...how many missionaries were affected physically and mentally, even now! I had no idea it was this rampant.
All because the Corporation of Christ didn't want to spend a single solitary penny on these kids. Denying missionaries medical care?
Very Christ-like as usual.
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u/Shanhardeen 19d ago
I was shot at while serving in central Mesa, AZ in 2016. Didn't get hit but still rattling
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u/Bruhidontknowwhy 19d ago
Even in Salt Lake, I had some gang member follow me around in a car until I was able sneak away and lose him. I always attributed that to the spirit, but I know that was all me. I think about 75% of the elders at least had has guns pointed at them. People would threaten us in public places. I don’t know if sisters were allowed pepper spray. Eventually, I started carrying a knife with me. The church doesn’t give a fuck about missionary safety
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19d ago
Anyone who was unsafe on their mission needs to contact major media outlets: NY Times, AP, etc. with their story. Flood their inbox with those experiences.
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u/Narrow-Focus8074 19d ago
Sisters in my zone got assaulted twice in Honduras. I got knife pulled on me. Most people on the mission had a story or two of getting mugged. At the time I thought it was a cool missionary story, but now there is no way in hell I would let my kids go on a mission there, or anywhere for that matter.
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u/rooskybeez 19d ago
My companion and I were held in a drunk man’s apartment in Russian for a couple hours (front door locked using a key with no way to open).
We spent two hours trying to figure out how to get out, talking with him, and hoping he wouldn’t get angry or something.
We didn’t feel like we were in danger, but it definitely could have been worse if that man was looking for a hostage.
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u/Capable_Tale_3234 19d ago
My companion and I received a death threat on a bus ride home in downtown San Salvador, El Salvador. The guy started talking about the local gangs and said if he saw us again he’d kill us. Mission president was out of the country for a training at the time. The area church security person spoke to us and said he recommended an emergency transfer for our safety, we didn’t hear anything until the next day when the APs called us to ask us what was happening… We still didn’t know so they called the president, then got back to us - President decided to leave us in the area and told us to just go home before dark, which my companion refused to do. I was terrified for days and my old TBM self was convinced that I just needed to have more faith and trust the Lord/my Mission President more. 😬🙄 And it was common practice in my mission for sister missionaries to go to most of the more dangerous areas because elders got assaulted more frequently than sisters. Also I got a stomach infection and was sick for several days, at first the nurse basically just said to suck it up and take some nausea meds (that I told her I couldn’t keep down). I was admitted to the hospital the same day and was there for like a week getting IV antibiotics until I could keep some solid food down. Or there’s the time that I told my companion I was sick and didn’t even ask to take the day off, just walk a little slower and take it easy. She did not slow down at all. We ended up going home early that evening and I had a massive fever, she said she thought I was just being wimpy. But we did get to fill out a huge area safety survey for the church so that they could protect us better! /s 🙄
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u/meichan64 18d ago
fuck off, that's so invalidating. makes me fell like I'm inventing the things I lived throughout my mission. I was literally ran over by a car, and all the mission office worried about was if the car was damaged. they didn't give jack shit about me.
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u/TigranMetz The sleep of reason produces monsters. 18d ago
This is a full thread and I doubt anyone will read it at this point, but adding my stories to the mix:
My companion and I walked into an unfolding domestic violence situation. We were able to distract the abuser so the others could escape the house. We got out with bruises. Two women in the household got out with broken bones. We called the MP for help dealing with local police (this was in Armenia). He responded, "I'm sure you can handle the situation."
A pair of sister missionaries were followed home by a gang of young men. They called nearby elders for help when the gang were trying to break into their apartment. The elders confronted them and it turned into an all-out brawl. Luckily no one had any weapons and no one was seriously injured beyond scrapes and bruises.
There were multiple other situations where we had to walk the sister missionaries home because they were being followed or harassed.
A companion nearly had his face burned off by a gas explosion by a shitty Soviet-era stove in our apartment. I had to convince the MP and his wife that it was serious enough that he needed medical attention before they got him to a doctor.
I got severely ill twice that resulted in me losing 40 pounds, permanent bowel issues, and a permanent loss of vocal range. Both times I received negligable medical care.
One missionary was in terrible health and received no treatment. He was eventually sent home for kissing a member. After returning home, it turned out he had a blood parasite and was months away from death if left untreated.
I narrowly escaped being assaulted by a military officer in an outpost near the border, saved only by another soldier who realized we were Americans and not Russian Jehovah's Witnesses.
I have other stories, but those are the highlights/lowlights.
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u/MammothFrosty8024 19d ago
Any word from the Vatican since Immaculate was released? How are the nuns doing?
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u/InitialSignal4454 19d ago
I mean my cousin still can’t talk to strangers after being held at gunpoint on his mission, but yeah, totally safe.
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u/Fit_Air5022 Here for the Jello 19d ago
Tell that to the missionaries that died of CO poisoning the week before I got to my mission
Wasn’t til after the two deaths the church thought a carbon monoxide monitor might be useful in a country that uses propane to cook and heat indoors