LDS Freedom Forum

Dusty Wanderer wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 4:59 pm

honestseeker12 wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 6:19 pm
I am curious, though. Have any of you that served missions have recurring dreams that you are on a mission again? I have these dreams from time to time where I am on a mission again, and I know in the dream that it is a second mission. I am not talking about senior missions. Just the feeling that I am supposed to serve a mission again. I still have those dreams sometimes. I even got a blessing in the last year or so when I was sick where I was told that I still had a work to do for the Lord. I think it involves preaching the gospel after the One Mighty and Strong sets in order the church, but that is perhaps speculation. Anyone else have dreams about serving another mission?

Yes, I actually didn’t start having them until I had been home for a few years and after I was married. They always seemed very real, sometimes my wife was with me, usually they were in my old areas from the mission, and they were positive (like I didn’t want them to end). I just had another one about six months ago.

Had one 3 nights ago.
If you know me, you would understand my consternation, as I'm out.
Was more of a nightmare than anything else.

HereWeGo wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 9:04 pm I was in southern Germany in the early 70s. I was a senior companion at 3 1/2 months and had greenies from 4 months on. In order for me and the greenies to learn German, I decided we would only speak German. The greenie could say something to me in English and I would say it in German and have him repeat it. For a while, I worked with Americans who were on bases and spoke English. For over a year before I went home, I spoke little if any English.

2 weeks before I came home, all the missionaries in the area were invited to dinner at an American Military Officer's home. I found out quick that I could not speak English very well at all. I used English words but could only use German sentence structure. I would say things like: " Is it here that we off the streetcar get?" "Would you me please the salt pass?" Everyone thought I was being funny but I was panicking because in 2 weeks I would be dating girls and making a fool out of myself. I began speaking nothing but English and had my companion correct my errors.

Occasionally, I wake up from a dream and find that I was dreaming in pure German and then thinking in German about the dream.

I hope you’ve kept your German language skills up!

ransomme wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 8:43 pm

Dusty Wanderer wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 5:23 pm

ransomme wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 5:19 pm

Basically April and May of '95

Ha! So cool. I was there too, brother. Went in April and flew out to Puerto Rico in June. If I remember right is was a group of Polynesian elders and sisters that met up there.

Wow pretty

Hey, I've got a totally random question for you...
Did you ever become aware of a sister in the MTC with us who was considered very attractive? I mean so many elders were smitten. So much so that they would look for her at devotionals, of the cafeteria.

I think of her as the red dress lady in the Matrix.

LOL. I don't remember that, but sounds like I missed out. I was probably distracted by thoughts of which cereals I was going to eat next in the cafeteria. Loved the cereal bar.

ithink wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 9:09 pm

Dusty Wanderer wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 4:59 pm

honestseeker12 wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 6:19 pm
I am curious, though. Have any of you that served missions have recurring dreams that you are on a mission again? I have these dreams from time to time where I am on a mission again, and I know in the dream that it is a second mission. I am not talking about senior missions. Just the feeling that I am supposed to serve a mission again. I still have those dreams sometimes. I even got a blessing in the last year or so when I was sick where I was told that I still had a work to do for the Lord. I think it involves preaching the gospel after the One Mighty and Strong sets in order the church, but that is perhaps speculation. Anyone else have dreams about serving another mission?

Yes, I actually didn’t start having them until I had been home for a few years and after I was married. They always seemed very real, sometimes my wife was with me, usually they were in my old areas from the mission, and they were positive (like I didn’t want them to end). I just had another one about six months ago.

Had one 3 nights ago.
If you know me, you would understand my consternation, as I'm out.
Was more of a nightmare than anything else.

It's an intriguing phenomenon for sure.

BenMcCrea wrote: ↑November 7th, 2023, 1:31 am

HereWeGo wrote: ↑October 29th, 2023, 9:04 pm I was in southern Germany in the early 70s. I was a senior companion at 3 1/2 months and had greenies from 4 months on. In order for me and the greenies to learn German, I decided we would only speak German. The greenie could say something to me in English and I would say it in German and have him repeat it. For a while, I worked with Americans who were on bases and spoke English. For over a year before I went home, I spoke little if any English.

2 weeks before I came home, all the missionaries in the area were invited to dinner at an American Military Officer's home. I found out quick that I could not speak English very well at all. I used English words but could only use German sentence structure. I would say things like: " Is it here that we off the streetcar get?" "Would you me please the salt pass?" Everyone thought I was being funny but I was panicking because in 2 weeks I would be dating girls and making a fool out of myself. I began speaking nothing but English and had my companion correct my errors.

Occasionally, I wake up from a dream and find that I was dreaming in pure German and then thinking in German about the dream.

I hope you’ve kept your German language skills up!

I found that I had a portion of my brain which was English thinking and one that was German thinking. When I avoided the English portion of my brain for so long, it dwindled. In the 50 years since my mission, the German portion of my brain has dwindled because I have not known anyone who could converse in German. I can still understand simple conversational German but not new wording and phrases. It is hard to get into that German part of my brain. It is obviously still there because I wake up from a full blown German speaking dream. I just can't consciously jump between languages easily.

Shortly after my mission, I worked with an older German man. I thought I could keep my language fresh with him. However, he was a WWII general who engineered the pull-out from the Russian front. He was apparently so ashamed of what he did that he wouldn't speak German to me. I would speak German to him and he would only speak English back to me. I gave up after a while.

One of the best things that helped me learn Spanish was to think in Spanish. I know that may sound rudimentary, but making that switch helped immensely. Before we ever speak we are formulating the words in our minds.

Reluctant Watchman wrote: ↑November 7th, 2023, 10:38 am One of the best things that helped me learn Spanish was to think in Spanish. I know that may sound rudimentary, but making that switch helped immensely. Before we ever speak we are formulating the words in our minds.

Yes, I had a similar experience. I spoke Spanish, too. Had a native companion for 5 months that didn’t speak English at all. I was dreaming in Spanish before my next area, which was weird at first because even family members, old friends, etc would speak to me in Spanish (in my dreams).

I share one of my mission experiences in Germany: https://latterdaylamanite.com/2021/09/1 ... -part-two/

marc wrote: ↑November 7th, 2023, 2:50 pm I share one of my mission experiences in Germany: https://latterdaylamanite.com/2021/09/1 ... -part-two/

Beautiful experiences, thanks for sharing!

I served in the city of Sevilla, Spain for 8 months as my third area. During that time I had 5 different companions and trained twice. Something different than most other missions is we had a 3 hour break during the middle of the day. 1 hr for lunch, 1 hr for study, and 1 hr for a siesta. Boy, I loved those siestas. Everything in the city would usually shut down for lunch. Shops would close and people would eat as a family, it was often the biggest meal of the day. In the evenings we would also stay out later due to the 1 hr siesta, pushing our schedule back so we didn’t have to be back in the apartment until 10 pm, bedtime at 11.

In this city the public transit system was quite nice. I remember one morning getting on the bus with my new greenie. His language skills were ok, but so gringo. I had been there so long that had often gotten into the routine of just getting on the bus and taking my seat. My companion was so excited to share the gospel he would move round the bus and try to talk to anyone he could. I found his innocent, yet heartfelt efforts to be a breath of fresh air.

Another morning we had just gotten on the bus and saw a girl sitting in the back. She looked like she was decked out from head-to-toe for clubbing in the discotecas. We pulled alongside a neighborhood of apartments and she got off and walked into the concrete maze. It was then we realized that she wasn’t starting her day like we were, she was ending her night of partying. The youth there loved to party until all hours of the morning.

Which reminds me of a time we ran into a group of ladies chatting it up around 10 o’clock at night. Most people liked to come out after sunset to enjoy the cooler temps. After 15-20 minutes of chatting the conversation turned to whether we had girlfriends, etc., and this older lady essentially asked why we didn’t have a couple of nice girls we could pick up in the area and go sleep with them. We laughed (well, at least I did, not sure if my companion did) and went back to the apartment (alone mind you).

Dusty Wanderer wrote: ↑November 7th, 2023, 8:47 am

ithink wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 9:09 pm

Dusty Wanderer wrote: ↑November 6th, 2023, 4:59 pm

Yes, I actually didn’t start having them until I had been home for a few years and after I was married. They always seemed very real, sometimes my wife was with me, usually they were in my old areas from the mission, and they were positive (like I didn’t want them to end). I just had another one about six months ago.

Had one 3 nights ago.
If you know me, you would understand my consternation, as I'm out.
Was more of a nightmare than anything else.

It's an intriguing phenomenon for sure.

It is.
I wrote a book in which I talk about control groups and your personality.
That's the polite way of saying "the cult that you are in".

So as they say, you can take yourself out of the church, but you can't take the church out of you.

I served in the Japan Tokyo mission. No, neither "North" nor "South. It apparently became just "Tokyo" shortly before I went (2008~) with Sendai absorbing most of Tokyo South, then I think after I left it split again. I don't know how it is right now.

One morning for our language study, I decided to go through a list of astronomical terms such as planet names. No discernable prompting or anything, just decided to do it. Companion criticized it as a waste of time, which was a fair intellectual assessment. That night, we met with an investigator for the third or fourth time. At some point, he started going off about all sorts of weird end-days and space-related stuff about aliens, Planet X, and other junk. For the first time, my companion/trainer-renown in the mission for his Kanji expertise by having painstakingly read "Jesus the Christ" in Japanese-had no flipping idea what this man was saying. For a glorious ten or fifteen minutes, I was in the driver's seat for no reason other than that morning's study. He was later baptized.

On another morning, different companion, an older member brought kendo equipment and asked if we wanted to practice with it in the Church parking lot. Of course, there's only one possible answer you'll get from a couple of foreign nineteen/twenty year old boys, and that went on until the bishop stepped outside of the building on this weekday morning and stared at us disapprovingly.

I was still new and had been assigned to someone else who also was not highly proficient in Japanese, and we had trouble understanding a lot of what one investigator we made was saying. We talked to the bishop (same one as above mentioned lol. I mean "w".) about it and he suggested having him in the next lesson with us, which again we had a little trouble understanding at times. Afterward, he summarized the investigator's comments in simpler terms; he was an ex-yakuza who was kicked out for trying to get friendly with the boss' girl. He pointed out his missing fingers and explained their loss as a sign of someone leaving (or being removed from) groups like that. He suggested we have him (the bishop) in future lessons involving this particular investigator, but we didn't heed that and went ahead with the next one without him. It ended with the investigator going into a flying rage over why Jesus doesn't just come fix things in life now, and he never spoke to us again.

There was a widower with two daughters in one ward I was in. His wife was a member, as were his children, and he would have been except that he smoked. One evening, we received an impromptu call on the phone from him. It was a landline, of course, only later that year would that mission finally begin rolling out cellular phones. Flatly, no small talk, he told us to come to his apartment and take all his cigarettes away. He was going to stop smoking for a week solid, and if he succeeded, he wanted to be baptized. We took them, he succeeded, and he was baptized. What happened to the cigarettes? In a larger apartment that had two companionships, I couldn't believe I was the only one of the four not-stupid enough to protest their brilliant idea to fry them in a frying pan on the stove. I mean what in the actual hex idea was that?? Ooh, the apartment is full of cigarette smoke! You didn't see that coming, did you? Quick, open the window and let it out! (And the mosquitoes in)

One activity we performed frequently was handing out fliers for English lessons at train stations. At one particular station, we occasionally noticed a man handing out fliers for something else, but only to young women. After seeing this a couple of times, we walked up to him and offered to exchange fliers, which he accepted kind of awkwardly. His flier talked about opportunities for not-quite-prostitution.

One member in an area there was a huge fan of Donny Osmond. Really, just some random Japanese woman. Pictures of him throughout her apartment. Most decorations and accents were purple, because that is his favorite color. She may have been a member because he is.

Sorry for the double post, but another just occurred to me:

Native Japanese Elders tend to start out very business like and no-nonsense. (Like you'd expect of a businessman. The sisters start out kind of like just-graduated high-school students. I suppose culturally these observations make sense. Men are expected to be business and women are expected to be fun and youthful.) We had a Japanese Elder just begin his mission, assigned to an American. I understood somewhat where the Japanese Elder was coming from, I also had a thick shell to slowly break out of. It was a gradual process, at first he'd be shocked at any form of rest, silliness, or tomfoolery displayed by his companion, other missionaries, or at zone meetings, but the cracks were forming. It culminated in one glorious coming-out at an otherwise routine district meeting. Unbeknownst to him, every other elder present (including myself) had purchased glasses with fake mustaches and comically oversized pens. In the middle of the meeting, we were candidly instructed to pull out our planners and start putting in some information the DL was going to give us, and all just casually throw the glasses on and pull out the oversized pens. He broke. He couldn't hold back, he fell and just lost his mind laughing for a solid three or four minutes. Attempts to gather himself would fail as soon as he saw anyone. From then on, he was noticeably more open and sociable.

I put in papers for a mission after I got divorced. They told me to wait a year and I got married instead.

But, I still have some good/bad stories.

My ex had an experience where someone he and his companion met on the street threatened they would "get them" someday. Much later at a different location something bad happened (sin) and a stranger walked by and said "I told you I would get you." Freaked him out years later because he though it was Satan both times.

My ex also had SSA because of abuse as a child and he and some of his mission comps were sexual partners, not just comps. I didn't know until right before we got divorced. He would spend his weekends with 3 of his mission comps up in SLC. Sometimes staying overnight. It was always something like they were helping one of the guys move and it was so late they just stayed at his place.

After the third time I called him out for it and he said he was gay and wanted a divorce.

He also got kicked out of BYU for trying to hit on his roommate on a BYU traveling performance trip. Poor kid hid in the bathroom all night.

My husband served in the southern US states. He had a good MP and a bad MP.

The bad one for in trouble for midnight baptisms.

His mission had two gangs of elders with signs and signals and trouble. He didn't join either group, but has some terrible stories. He had one comp who was actually abusive.

He did enjoy one part of his mission. They served in a military base and he loved it because anything you asked the investigator to do, they did immediately because of their military training to obey commands.

They were also threatened by the KKK and had to be transferred out of the area.