Traumatic memories of my mission

[SoonerCoug]

Obviously exposure racism and homophobia isn't traumatic enough for all the true believers out there, so here's some mission trauma for you to minimize.

Experience 1. Elder being stabbed and murdered. His companion was my former companion, and he was stabbed and survived.

Experience 2. Old drunk woman trying to kiss me.

Experience 3. Robbed with a gun pointed at my head. Companion held with gun pointed at forehead and then pistol whipped.

Experience 4. Robbers broke into apartment and stole everything.

Experience 5. Robbers cut phone line and broke through windows in an attempt to kill us and steal everything. Luckily I called the cops just before they cut the line, and the cops actually showed up.

Experience 6. Robbed at knife point.

Experience 7. Missionaries filled orange Fanta bottles with urine and allowed it to ferment.

Experience 8. Being forced to try to contact people in -30 degree weather--all day:


Experience 9. Bathing in this:


Experience 10. Awaking to the screams of my good neighbor as the Russian mafia was sawing his head off.

Experience 11. Finding out that the mafia had sawed the head off of our branch president.

Experience 12. Getting yelled at by a cleaning lady at the MTC because she didn't like the way I cleaned drinking fountains during "Celestial Service." I should have been in a chemistry class at BYU, but instead I was paying my hard-earned money to work as a janitor. That's a pretty slick deal for the Church to get missionaries to fork over cash, time, and clean their buildings.

[DU Ute]

I just have a question about #7. Did they drink the stuff?

[SoonerCoug]

I just have a question about #6. Did they drink the stuff?

I'm guessing you mean #7. No, but eventually the stuff formed layers and developed a crust on top.

[FMCoug]

At least there is stuff in this list that reasonable people would categorize as traumatic.

Fanta pee? No.
Robbed at gunpoint? Yes.

Etc.

[JohnnyLingo]

If I'd been called to Russia, I may have the attitude you do towards the Church, Sooner.

Not kidding.

[falafel]

You're going to get the vast majority of these ones. Not Nos. 2, 7 and 12 though. What's so traumatic about old and old women? And if someone yelling at you causes you trauma, you've clearly got bigger issues to deal with.

[wuapinmon]

1. Happening upon a sidewalk covered in human blood where a man had had his head split open by a machete a while earlier over his watch. The blood was still red.

2. Falling into a manhole during a foot-deep-in-the-street rainstorm because someone had stolen the cover and almost being sucked into the drainage system.

3. Falling off a hillside about six feet onto a recently macheted tree stump, landing on it on my stomach, and rolling over expecting to be dead shortly and finding only some dirt on my garments.

4. Saying "no, gracias" to offers to have blue-eyed children with certain women.

5. Coming home from working and finding the roof to our house had collapsed during a rain storm. It had rained all night too; we could've died.

6. Falling through the second story floor of our house because it was poorly constructed.

7. Having diarrhea and vomiting so bad at the same time, that I sat on the toilet and expelled foulness from one end while projectile vomiting into the shower, several times. This happened about once a month.

8. Being sick 500/720 days of the mission with "bichos."

9. Gamma globulin injections every four months---cold peanut butter into your upper arm.

10. 17 ingrown toenails surgeries in a country without thin hypodermic needles. The numbing injection hurt as much, if not more, than the surgery/infection.

11. Someone super-gluing the lock to our house's bars shut and having to beg someone to bring us a hacksaw and then hacking through one side of the lock only to realize that it was the other side that had to be cut....it took hours.

[LiveCoug]

Experience 8. Being forced to try to contact people in -30 degree weather--all day:

I can relate to this one.. Winters were soooo depressing. We would be dressed in 5+ layers of clothing and to gain a little warmth, we would enter apartment building and stick our faces on the metal radiators at the entrances. Good times.

[Non Sequitur]

1. Happening upon a sidewalk covered in human blood where a man had had his head split open by a machete a while earlier over his watch. The blood was still red.

2. Falling into a manhole during a foot-deep-in-the-street rainstorm because someone had stolen the cover and almost being sucked into the drainage system.

3. Falling off a hillside about six feet onto a recently macheted tree stump, landing on it on my stomach, and rolling over expecting to be dead shortly and finding only some dirt on my garments.

4. Saying "no, gracias" to offers to have blue-eyed children with certain women.

5. Coming home from working and finding the roof to our house had collapsed during a rain storm. It had rained all night too; we could've died.

6. Falling through the second story floor of our house because it was poorly constructed.

7. Having diarrhea and vomiting so bad at the same time, that I sat on the toilet and expelled foulness from one end while projectile vomiting into the shower, several times. This happened about once a month.

8. Being sick 500/720 days of the mission with "bichos."

9. Gamma globulin injections every four months---cold peanut butter into your upper arm.

10. 17 ingrown toenails surgeries in a country without thin hypodermic needles. The numbing injection hurt as much, if not more, than the surgery/infection.

11. Someone super-gluing the lock to our house's bars shut and having to beg someone to bring us a hacksaw and then hacking through one side of the lock only to realize that it was the other side that had to be cut....it took hours.

I don't mean to be insensitive, but Sooner's stories -- whether they're true or not -- are very traumatic. Your's are all kind of funny.

[thesaint258]

As soon as I saw number 9, I thought, "He served in Russia." In which part did you serve?

[Solon]

I dealt out some trauma when a guy we were talking to grabbed my neck and tried to choke me one winter evening in downtown Nice. I had been out about 20 months and was a little worn out, so I took out my frustrations on this guy.

I'm a pretty small guy, but so was this guy and Frenchies just don't know how to fight. It was very one-sided. My idiot companion just stood there and watched. I almost beat him up too for not having my back.

I lost a contact lens (he tried to scratch my eyes out on the ground) and my right hand was swollen for a week.

Still the only fight I've ever been in.

[beefytee]

Experience 12. Getting yelled at by a cleaning lady at the MTC because she didn't like the way I cleaned drinking fountains during "Celestial Service." I should have been in a chemistry class at BYU, but instead I was paying my hard-earned money to work as a janitor. That's a pretty slick deal for the Church to get missionaries to fork over cash, time, and clean their buildings.

What does owning a building have to do with who cleans it?

Rent had never covered maidservice anywhere I've stayed except hotels.

I guess it never covered meals either though, but those were provided at the MTC.

[JohnnyLingo]

I dealt out some trauma when a guy we were talking to grabbed my neck and tried to choke me one winter evening in downtown Nice. I had been out about 20 months and was a little worn out, so I took out my frustrations on this guy.

I'm a pretty small guy, but so was this guy and Frenchies just don't know how to fight. It was very one-sided. My idiot companion just stood there and watched. I almost beat him up too for not having my back.

I lost a contact lens (he tried to scratch my eyes out on the ground) and my right hand was swollen for a week.

Still the only fight I've ever been in.

Sounds like Derek Jeter.

[byu71]

We had a lady come to the door with her robe completely open and nothing on. I turned my head a looked away while my companion gave her a good tongue lashing.

[Non Sequitur]

We had a lady come to the door with her robe completely open and nothing on. I turned my head a looked away while my companion gave her a good tongue lashing.

Now, that was funny.