Missing Mission Stories

Glossing over the harsh realities of Latter-day Saint missionary life creates a distorted, romanticized image for those preparing for the two-year religious rite of passage.

My trainer and I were racing home in the dark, humid Japanese summer night during my first transfer as a missionary. Cutting it close to our nightly nine o’clock curfew, we ferociously pedaled along the narrow strip of a two-lane highway, sweat soaking our clothes as much as the rain that splashed against our bike tires and drenched our pant legs. 

Despite our frantic pace, I dreaded arriving at our apartment only to sit down and write all zeros again next to our daily goals. I thought of my hour of free time I’d spend lazily lounging in my futon wishing I could talk to a friend from home or lock myself in the apartment until I mastered Japanese. I thought about the horror of waking up the next morning to yet another humiliating and grinding day as a missionary with nothing to show for, continuing a two-year-long cycle I was just over two months into. 

Fixated on my own despair and wanting desperately to avoid the next two years without ending my mission in disgrace, I contemplated drifting a few feet into the road as a semi-truck barreled down the highway. A slight, sudden movement on a dark, rainy night and I could escape my nightly planning, tomorrow’s hours on end of knocking doors, and my dreary existence as a missionary. It was the first time I ever had any suicidal ideations. 

I didn’t tell my companion about my suicidal thought once we got back to our apartment, never wrote this experience down in my meticulously kept mission journal, never mentioned it when writing my weekly email home, and until now I have only mentioned this story to one or two close friends. I felt so trapped and helpless that I wished—however briefly—a semi-truck could ‘honorably’ release me from my mission. 

This suicidal thought didn’t fit the narrative I had adopted from hours upon hours spent in missionary prep lessons and activities in seminary, priest quorums, and youth firesides. I’d heard hundreds of stories extolling the blessings of missionary service topped off with a standard Mormon testimony. Any negative aspects of a mission were used as a lesson to show how God will make everything right in the end for those who put their trust in Him. These momentary hardships were gift-wrapped trials from God that could be turned into spiritual teaching moments once the missionary showed exact obedience to strict mission rules or selflessly put their whole heart into the work. (Queue President Hinckley.) 

It also wasn’t how the elders and sisters in the field talked about missions either. My suicidal thought along the side of the road didn’t have a tidy spiritual lesson that I could write home about or plug into a short sacrament talk encouraging the ward members to refer their friends to us. I tucked it away and dismissed it in hopes that God would magically take away the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness from me. I tried to follow the advice drilled into my head—forget yourself and get to work—but it never produced the miraculous results promised by my church leaders.  

All my problems stemmed directly from the grueling hours of proselytizing and the anxiety surrounding chasing the elusive, ever-moving target of 100% exact obedience. My gut-wrenching homesickness, the guilt and shame from only managing to lazily stretch during our allotted half-hour of mandatory morning exercise, the dozens of times each day I struggled to finish a grammatically correct sentence in Japanese, and the thousands of demoralizing slammed doors and canceled appointments kept piling on until I accepted my miserable life as a missionary. It was not going to be the best two years, but rather a test of survival. My only comforting thought was that come May 31, 2016, I’d be free from being a missionary for the rest of my life. 

After nearly a year out in the field, I acclimated to my game of survival. Towards the end of my two years, I even came to generally enjoy my life as a missionary. I picked up enough Japanese to not feel embarrassed every time I spoke. I found fulfillment in helping the missionaries around me when I got too deflated by my lack of numerical success in proselyting. I never experienced the uplifting stories that had been repeated ad nauseum at church growing up or by my fellow missionaries of quickly learning a foreign language or witnessing the miraculous conversions of my investigators. Instead, I viewed the life-long skills of perseverance, hard work, and my newfound Japanese speaking ability, topped off with gaining a strong testimony, as the fruits of my labors and the heavenly reward for my two years of proselytizing.  

Upon returning home, I cherry-picked from my two years to mimic the stories and testimonies I had heard hundreds of times before—even though my experiences didn’t quite fit. I focused almost exclusively on the highlights of the second half of my mission, always emphasizing my personal growth as proof of the God-ordained nature of the Latter-day Saint missionary experience. All the days I cried alone in the bathroom hoping my companion couldn’t hear me, all the guilt from stretching dinner fifteen minutes past our allotted hour, all the times I submissively went along with my companion to avoid an argument, and all my depressing and suicidal thoughts were pushed to the side to make room for the positive aspects of my mission.  

My heavily skewed recounting of my mission experience was most pronounced when I was asked to share my testimony of missionary service with my brother’s deacons quorum. Not wanting to scare them away from serving missions, I relied on vague cliches and simplistic narratives, stating that although missions were the hardest thing anyone could ever do, they were worth it. Despite all my efforts to communicate what I had never understood before my mission, I fell back on the very narrative that left me completely unprepared to face the spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional grind of missionary life. 

Just as I didn’t have the words to convey what I wanted to say in my first months as a missionary, I didn’t know how to speak about my mission truthfully for years after returning home. As I’ve tried to process all the negative experiences and mission stories missing from my public recollections in testimony meetings and casual conversations with friends and family, I’ve become comfortable sharing my own experiences from my two years of proselyting. 

My mission was far from the simple, faith-promoting learning experience advertised by my church leaders. I was frequently taught that my companions would prepare me for dating and marriage. Instead, I refused to talk openly about any problems with my companions, avoiding the awkward conversations and surviving until the mission president transferred one of us away. I was promised I’d learn to listen to the Spirit and come closer to God. In reality, I anxiously worried whether leaving the apartment five minutes late or ignoring a feeling to turn onto a certain street jeopardized the eternal salvation of a Japanese child of God. I heard dozens of stories about the gift of tongues. I only learned enough Japanese to tell people what I believed and what they should do but never enough to adequately listen and learn from those around me. 

Many of the things I am most grateful about my time in Japan also differ from the blessings most returned missionaries report. Living for the first time outside of my Mormon, suburban shell, I interacted with those in poverty, knocking doors in towering, run-down apartment buildings filled with immigrants and low-skill wage workers. I created lasting relationships with the English-speaking missionaries I worked alongside with. I gained an appreciation for a culture different from mine by visiting shrines and scenic mountain trails on P-day excursions. I learned to empathize with those who had lifestyles radically different from mine. 

My positive experiences and the skills I learned do not erase or invalidate the debilitating heartbreak that crushed me as an 18-year-old overwhelmed with a 24/7 ecclesiastical mission I never was emotionally or mentally prepared for. Conversely, my depression doesn’t negate those experiences or skills acquired. My mission doesn’t fit neatly into a box. It wasn’t a two-year-long faith-promoting experience, nor was it merely two years full of traumatic experiences. 

No one’s mission story is that simple. But that’s not the message others hear when we gloss over, leave out, or conveniently “forget” unsavory aspects of our missions. These missing mission stories fill out the reality of everyday life as a missionary, one that can remain elusive to those who never experienced the unique, demanding nature of a Latter-day Saint-proselytizing mission. Being open and frank about the unsettling challenges of missionary life won’t entertain a staid sacrament-meeting audience, excite church leaders, or increase the number of youth signing up for missions, but it will help prevent a scared and unprepared missionary from ending up on the side of the road hoping to beat a two-year game of survival.