Traumatic memories of my mission

[Tim]

dealing with elders fighting over bolly caos

Wait a minute... if you're referring chocolate inside a hot dog bun, shoot, that's worth fighting for!!! I love bollycaos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I also like the version made by Bimbo, the Bimbocao.

[wuapinmon]

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.

That's the point. His is so horrific that nothing compares to it...like, nothing. Though I will say that I didn't laugh at #1 very much.

[SoonerCoug]

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.

WashingtonCoug was my companion, and he can verify most of the stories. He and I were in separate cities for a portion of our missions, so he probably couldn't verify the minor stories, like the one about Fanta.

[Portland Ute]

Mine was finding out a former comp had confessed to sleeping with a married member in africa then being told that my master plan of becoming AP was on hold because the MP was concerned I really knew (which I didn't, and I ultimately achieved the pinnacle calling only to wish I was just baptizing instead of dealing with elders fighting over bolly caos)

Where were you that you had bolly cao????

What a ridiculous snack food. A hot dog bun filled with nutella. Smashing idea.

[Moliere]

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.

I thought the whole $375 a month was a steal. I couldn't live on that in college. Not sure why it is so traumatizing to have most of your expenses subsidized by other people.

[SoonerCoug]

I thought the whole $375 a month was a steal. I couldn't live on that in college. Not sure why it is so traumatizing to have most of your expenses subsidized by other people.

Yeah, that apartment cost about 50 bucks a month. I suppose I was subsidizing missionaries in NYC or something, which is fine. On the other hand, since the finances aren't public, the Church could have made money on the deal.

[Portland Ute]

I thought the whole $375 a month was a steal. I couldn't live on that in college. Not sure why it is so traumatizing to have most of your expenses subsidized by other people.

Some people really just look for a reason to bitch.

I actually looked forward to the service because it meant I got out of that little 12X12 room that smelled like a church building and farts.

I was always glad for the little moments away from learning the language and teaching.

[SeattleUte]

We peed in Coke bottles (we drank Coke, not Fanta). We lived in a dilapidated monstrsity of a 19th century building in downtown Quito. The bathroom was on the other side of the building with this empty space like a soaring atrium in the middle. We had to descend many flights of stairs then climb many flights of stairs to get to the bathroom. Going that route in the middle of the night could have resulted in fatal falls, stepping on rats, getting mugged, freezing, whatever. But we had many crumbling rooms in our flat. So we dedicated one of them to pee bottles, scores of them that we let ferment. We kept the door closed but during ZL conference elders stayed at our flat, and we showed them the place to pee at night. They acted like we were sickos, like we had bodies stashed in there or something. I have no regrets. My companion is now a stake president in Pyuallup, Washington.

[SoonerCoug]

Some people really just look for a reason to bitch.

I actually looked forward to the service because it meant I got out of that little 12X12 room that smelled like a church building and farts.

I was always glad for the little moments away from learning the language and teaching.

The language learning was the good part for me. The only thing worse than Celestial Service was those group meetings.

[Portland Ute]

The language learning was the good part for me. The only thing worse than Celestial Service was those group meetings.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed learning the language. However, I have the attention span of a gnat. Being cooped up in those rooms hour after hour after hour, day after day after day, week after week after week....

I nearly went insane. Getting out of the classrooms was the only thing that kept me going there. Even if it was to do laundry, watch Robbie Reid try to school lame elders that tried to take it to him, clean urinals or arrange made up reasons to talk to the branch president about how I felt guilty about the way I treated some kid in junior high and I just could not get over it. Or saying my eyesight was getting weird (which was true) so that I could go to the mall. I HAD to get out of that place. 10 weeks was far too long.

[il Padrino Ute]

I wouldn't say that I was traumatized, but three things I would call shocking that I experienced in the mission:

1. My first day in my first city, Palermo, my companion and I (and many, many others) saw the assassination of a judge at the judicial plaza. We later that day learned that he was the judge in whose courtroom a trial for Mafia boss was starting that day.

2. The mission office/apartment for the office missionaries in Catania was located on the 4th floor of a large building. The ground floor was occupied by various businesses. One morning, we were awoken by an explosion. A bomb had exploded in a small clothing store that was below us. There were new owners of this store and rumor from other tenants was that the new owners refused to pay protection fees.

3. When I had about a week left before I returned home, while interviewing a gentleman for baptism, I asked him if he had ever killed anyone. He said yes, many. It turned out that he had been a hit man for hire that a few Mafia families would use to take care of business.

[SoonerCoug]

I had an elder in the MTC accuse me of being gay when I boxed him out playing basketball.

[SoonerCoug]

I wouldn't say that I was traumatized, but three things I would call shocking that I experienced in the mission:

1. My first day in my first city, Palermo, my companion and I (and many, many others) saw the assassination of a judge at the judicial plaza. We later that day learned that he was the judge in whose courtroom a trial for Mafia boss was starting that day.

2. The mission office/apartment for the office missionaries in Catania was located on the 4th floor of a large building. The ground floor was occupied by various businesses. One morning, we were awoken by an explosion. A bomb had exploded in a small clothing store that was below us. There were new owners of this store and rumor from other tenants was that the new owners refused to pay protection fees.

3. When I had about a week left before I returned home, while interviewing a gentleman for baptism, I asked him if he had ever killed anyone. He said yes, many. It turned out that he had been a hit man for hire that a few Mafia families would use to take care of business.

The Italian Mafia is way more interesting than the Russian Mafia, in my opinion. I would have much rather interacted with the Italian ones. They actually have rules and principles that govern their organizations, unlike the Russians.

[statman]

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.

lol - I had one of those too.

Riding my bike on a bike path in the Bavarian town of Landshut. Pissed at my comp - riding fast to an appointment on a road bike about 150 yards in front of him (he was on a newly invented mountain bike - it weighed a TON and were SLOW). It was about 5:00 pm and traffic on the road was heavy. The bike path and sidewalk were both elevated up the same surface on a curb, higher than the road (sidewalk closer to the road).

Turned a bend on the path around some trees and came upon a kid ~14 yo trying to do tricks on a BMX bike, weaving back and forth from bike path to sidewalk (orderly Germans do not cross lines!), and of course it turns out he was wearing headphones. Just a bit beyond him was a lady pushing a baby carriage on the sidewalk. She happened to be walking a big dog - which wasn't exactly in the sidewalk area.

I was going FAST (again, I was pissed at my comp). I rang my bell - and the kid should have gotten out of the way & stopped weaving - but he didn't hear me. We all happen to come together at the same point right at the beginning of s bridge that spans a big creek (in Utah, they'd call it a river).

I could - a) just keep going and plow into the kid, and maybe hit the dog, and potentially knock the woman & baby carriage into the road. or b) avoid the kid, but hit the dog, but maybe take the lady and baby carriage out with me, or c) hit the lady with the baby carriage, probably missing the dog and missing the doofus on the bike. None of them were good choices. So I drove my bike off to the right just before the bridge started, and tried to grab the railing of the bridge as my bike sailed down toward the creek.

It didn't work. Trying to grab the railing slowed my forward motion a bit, but I couldn't hang on. I fell about 15-20 feet down, landed on my back on a bunch of loose gravel. I just lay there or about 30 seconds, trying to take in a breath, and trying to figure out what was broken. I looked up and the lady and the bmx kid were both looking down at me from the bridge. She yelled down and asked if I could move anything, I decided to try and got up sore, but kind of amazed nothing was broken. I grabbed my bike and started climbing out . The kid bolted.

By the time I climbed up out of the ravine, the lady was walking out of a gas station and said that she'd called the cops & an ambulance. My companion was nowhere to be seen - he rode by as I was lying at the bottom of the ravine. I decided I'd better stick around and talk to the cops.

The cops showed up in about two minutes, and thought it was hilarious that I'd driven off the bridge. They canceled the ambulance. I went back to our apartment to wait for my comp to show up. He did about 30 minutes later, bearing McDonalds. He knew what had happened, because the same cops that talked to me saw him and knew he was looking for me and told me that I'd wrecked my bike but was okay.

My only injury - my Mr. Mac "Swedish steel" suit had a few scuff marks on it, and the rack on the back of my bike was all bent out of shape. After about 20 seconds of rubbing/scratching, you couldn't see any marks on the suit. I was sore as hell the next day, but no permanent damage...

[RockyBalboa]

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.

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.

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.