Re: Random thoughts...
Posted: April 7th, 2021, 6:36 am
Holy moly I only heard the stories about that part of history!!! You were actually there and lived through it!! I was there late 90s and heard all about those days from the people. Wild times yeah I loved it there tooJK4Woods wrote: ↑April 7th, 2021, 5:15 amThinker wrote: ↑April 6th, 2021, 8:27 pm Having grown up lds & known many members who have served missions, I only know of 1 that paid 100% her own way because she was older. There could be more that I am unaware of but it seems that the vast majority of missionaries get a free 2 year etc ride because either their parents or others pay for them. Or they pay like 5% but others pay most.
How many would go if they had to pay every cent?
Why is earning one’s own way but not going on a mission more shamed than going on a mission paid for by others?
These comments were interesting:
”Money should never be a motive in sharing the gospel. You dont want people on missions simply because they would have a free vacation and live off the church.”
“It's the ultimate money making scam, huh. Brainwash people, turn them into zombies and keep charging them even for stuff that they give you. Mormons have to pay for the privilege of tending the gardens at their temples.”
I paid every bit of my mission.
I bought my suits, shirts, socks and proselyting supplies on my own.
My Mom had died a year before I was discharged from the Army. I joined the church in 1977 at age 21 and had three years remaining in my enlistment.
By the time I got out of the Army, and into the MTC the next day, I had $5,000 left of my inheritance from my Mom.
I used every penny serving down in Argentina in the early 80’s. My mission started at $220 a month and I wrote a letter to my bank once a month to send me $250.
We lived a sort of law of consecration on my mission. Everyone paid the same amount of rent to the mission office. So those living in rural areas paid a surplus, and those in the city, had the exhorbitant apartment rent sudsidized.
Same went for bicycles. Anyone in a bike area, paid $50/ month for a bike. The mission furnished the bikes to those who needed them, and city missionaries just used the $50 for public transport.
Anyway, hyper inflation soon took hold.. soon the mission climbed to $260/ month, then $320/ month. By the time it hit $450 a month I was freaking out. I did the math and I got real mad about how my money wasn’t going to make it to the end.
I wrote a letter to the missionary department lambasting them for not taking into consideration the high inflation rate of some countries. I mean, the application process asked how much we could afford per month for our mission. We knew Bolivia cost $80/ month, and Japan ran $700/ month. Argentina was $180/ month when I filed my paperwork and $220/ month by the time I actually arrived in country.
Anyway, my letter was forwarded to the student ward Bishop from whence I came out in Manhattan, Kansas adjacent to KSU.
I hadn’t been a student, just an Army guy from nearby Ft. Riley interlopping at the Institute where the student ward originated.
The Student Bishop wrote me to say they would do everything they could to keep me on my mission, and how much did I need per month to keep going?
Well, I felt about two inches tall. Totally humiliated that I was having financial problems, and that I mouthed off about it.
Being I was the only member in my family, and my siblings were irreligious, I had no other means of support.
So I did what we were taught to do: I fasted and prayed. Cried to the Lord about my stress and worry about financial matters, and hoping to make it to the end of my mission.
The next week, the second (or third, I can’t remember) President of Argentina devalued the Argentine Peso by two zeros. All of a sudden my American dollars were worth a lot more Pesos, and I was rolling in cash..!!
Wow, talk about deliverance..!! I replied to the student ward Bishop that I didn’t need any financial assistance, and everything was OK.
So I stayed ahead of mission costs four more months, until hyper inflation kicked in. Some Elders deposited their monthly dollar allotment into local Argentine banks in “dollar accounts”, where they got 80% interest rates. It seemed shaky to me, and it was as the govt. froze all dollar accounts a few months later.
Hyper inflation rose to 400% per year. It drove hyper consumerism. Meaning as soon as anyone got paid, you went out and spent it that day, cause tomorrow the prices would go up.
All the grocery stores resorted to “chalk board” price listing. A guy would daily adjust the prices on everything. We’d buy food in huge lots and cram it in the smallish refrigerators in our apartments.
Everything cost more day by day. Except public transportation. Highly regulated, buses, trains and subway fares would increase, but much slower, usually every couple of months they’d jump in price.
The Peso had two more zeros added, so soon 10,000 peso bills fresh off the presses would be like five dollars, then by the end of the month, two dollars.
It got so bad, we ended up having 100,000 peso bills in our wallets. It was crazy, and the local population were worried sick trying to make ends meet.
By the end of my two years, I was using $625 American dollars per month to maintain myself. I figured out I could make it to the end and get home, because for the last year I stayed ahead of inflation by having dollars which I exchanged as needed into Pesos.
In the two years I was down there, the Presidency of Argentina changed five times..!! These were different Generals in the military Junta that had taken over the govt.
Eventually the Argentine Peso was dropped altogether, and we exchanged them for a new currency: the Austral. They dropped off six zeros with the new currency. So all of a sudden we were using $10 Australs to buy what a million pesos used to buy.
It worked for a few weeks, until it couldn’t hold back the pressure and inflation started again.
I returned home at the end, traveling with a companion touring Iguazu Falls & Sao Paolo, Brazil. Along with Lima and Cuzco, Peru.
Our tickets home were on Braniff Airlines, and they went bankrupt while in the air headed to LA from Peru. We had to beg other airlines to honor our tickets to get home on the final leg. My companion to Phoenix, and myself up to Seattle.
By gosh if that $5,000 inheritance from my Mother didn’t get me all they way thru my mission, home, and setup till I got a summer job working till I started school in the fall on my GI Bill...!!
And the poor suffering Argentines..?!? What happened to them..??
The fifth President tried to start something with Chile. Territorial challenges regarding the Beagle Islands. A few harsh words were bandied about and the press took up the cause. Tensions rose.
Then the Pope told both Chile and Argentina to knock it off! You’re both Catholic counties. What are you doing..?!?
This simmered down that dispute. But the Argentine leadership were under the gun with an increasingly disturbed populace.
A month after I got home, Argentina invaded the Faulkland islands. They were desperately trying to gin up a common enemy to unify the country and push the focus outward away from their inept leadership.
My buddies still down on the mission were locked up into their apartments because everyone thought they were CIA agents gathering and sending information to Britain.
After the sinking of the Belgano by the Brits, Argentines turned roughly against the US too.
By April of that year, my buddies had been holed up in their apartments for three or four months, members bringing them groceries. Like being under house arrest.
In General Conference, Pres. Kimball announced missionary service would be reduced to 18 months effective immediately and most of my fellow missionaries came home in droves from Argentina.
Several conferences after that, the single set monthly missionary cost was announced. Everyone pays $350/ month, no matter where you serve.
Argentina lost the war, and the military Junta was kicked out, and elections held.
It took another decade to pull some semblance of normalcy back into Argentine society.
It was quite a time...
Glad I went..