Craziest mission stories.

[il Padrino Ute]

1. My first full day in Palermo - my companion and I headed to the Carbanieri office (the state police) so I could register as a legal temporary visitor. We got off the bus and I could hear some sirens coming from a bit away and my comp said that I needed to see this because one of the judges was coming to work and he is escorted by 10 cops in three cars. The judge and his police escorts stop in front of the courthouse and get out of the cars. The cops surround the judge and as they start to walk up the stairs, we hear a gunshot from the building behind us and the judge drops dead on the stairs. We find out the next day that the judge had been assassinated - most likely from a Mafia hitman - and that day he was to preside over the trial of a Mafia boss.

2. One of the Elders in the office learned from his Mom that she had a cousin who lived in the mission city (Catania) and asked him to go visit her cousin and teach him the Gospel. I went with him to visit the man. He lived in a very affluent part of the city. We saw a gentleman getting out of a nice Maserati at the address we were looking for and my companion called out his name. The man looked at us walking up the sidewalk to his driveway and he takes off running. We chased him for a bit as the other Elder starts calling out that his mom was the man's cousin and she asked us to stop by and visit him. He stopped and all of a sudden we were all best friends. When we asked him why he was running from us, he said that when he sees to Americans in dark suits approaching him, his thought was that we were FBI or CIA. It turned out that he was a high level Mafia boss in Catania and we decided that we'd be friends, but it might be best if we didn't really pursue it any farther than that. He invited us to stay for dinner and decided that if we were what Mormons were really like he'd do anything for us or any other Mormon without expecting or asking for a return favor.

Fast forward about a month later and one of the office cars was stolen. The police didn't seem to care so this particular Elder calls his Mom's cousin and gave him info about the car - the make and model, the tag number etc. and asked if he could help us get the car back. He said he would. Two days later, our car is returned and filled with white roses which, in Italy, is a sign of apology. Taped to the windshield was a hand written note that said "I want to apologize for stealing your car. If I had known it was yours, I would never have taken it. Please forgive me."

We didn't bother to ask what happened, but we did thank the Mafioso for getting our car back. All of us office Elders decided that it would be best to not ever talk about what had happened. We just told the mission president that the car had been returned.

3. While interviewing a prospective member, I asked the gentleman - who was a very sincere investigator - if he had ever killed anyone and he responded with "Yes. Lots of people." Apparently, he had been a hitman for one of the Mafia families in Eastern Sicily, but at the time was "retired and not really planning on going back to work." I just told him that I wanted him to meet the mission president before we set a baptismal date. I told the mission president about it and went home the next week. I've never heard anything more about it, but the thought did cross my mind about the hit I saw in Palermo.

[nikuman]

Originally Posted by Archaea

My mission was mostly mundane. We didn't Little Rock Arkansas stories, and we observed the rules. Nonetheless, our baptism ratio was extremely low, so the numbers of baptisms does not necessarily correlate with rule adherence, despite many ZLs and APs preaching the contrary.

Some weird things happened, but not usually involving the wrongdoings of elders.

Did I already ask you how old you are? My dad served in Little Rock, but I suspect you are a couple of decades younger than he is.

[nikuman]

My crazy mission story may be the most unbelievable:

I was a rule-following straight arrow type. Had a couple of run in with crazies, got chased down the street by nasty Thai or some other nationality whores, ate a bunch of weird junk, had a member give me a promise ring (I never talked to her again), had another member continually set up "teaching" appointments that were really double dates, now that I think of it, or at least attempts at double dates and, oh, yeah, that crazy transvestite hooker that started hitting on my companion was pretty great.

Also, my chronic liar companion was good for some laughs.

By most standards, I had a pretty boring - if diligent - mission.

[microlex]

I was in Indonesia 1971 to 1973. Here are two relatively tame stories:
1.In November 1971 was tracting in a suburb of Jakarta. In this part of town there were a lot of foreigners. At a particular house this HUGE American opened the door. He was from Oklahoma and was in Indonesia doing something with oil drilling. I announced we were missionaries from the Mormon Church. At that point his wife who was within hearing distance in the front room stood up, yelled “How the hell did you find me?” then bolted out of the room! We were nonetheless invited in. It turned out that during the depression this woman had been a little girl and her entire family had been baptized into the Church, but they were a long way away from any functioning unit of the Church, and so they fell away from activity. For 30+ years she had this feeling of guilt, and was of the impression that Salt Lake had tracked here down! In the course of the first visit she offered me and my companion a drink, in this case a cola drink. We drank. We visited her a few more times, but nothing came of it. Subsequently we were advised by a third party that she had not been impressed with us because we took the cola drink!

2. New years day 1972. We were tracting in Jakarta and a Japanese man about 50 years old answered the door. He invited us in. In the course of the initial chit chat I asked him where he was from. He replied "Hiroshima". Several moments of uncomfortable silence followed. Then he said, "I was there". More silence. Then he said "So was my wife". More silence. Then he finally said "She died".

[il Padrino Ute]

Wow, micro. Story #1 is pretty humorous, but story #2 is an example of what it must be like to be in an uncomfortable situation.

I'll stick to brushes with the Mafia.

[Mindfulcoug]

Originally Posted by microlex

I was in Indonesia 1971 to 1973. Here are two relatively tame stories:
1.In November 1971 was tracting in a suburb of Jakarta. In this part of town there were a lot of foreigners. At a particular house this HUGE American opened the door. He was from Oklahoma and was in Indonesia doing something with oil drilling. I announced we were missionaries from the Mormon Church. At that point his wife who was within hearing distance in the front room stood up, yelled “How the hell did you find me?” then bolted out of the room! We were nonetheless invited in. It turned out that during the depression this woman had been a little girl and her entire family had been baptized into the Church, but they were a long way away from any functioning unit of the Church, and so they fell away from activity. For 30+ years she had this feeling of guilt, and was of the impression that Salt Lake had tracked here down! In the course of the first visit she offered me and my companion a drink, in this case a cola drink. We drank. We visited her a few more times, but nothing came of it. Subsequently we were advised by a third party that she had not been impressed with us because we took the cola drink!

2. New years day 1972. We were tracting in Jakarta and a Japanese man about 50 years old answered the door. He invited us in. In the course of the initial chit chat I asked him where he was from. He replied "Hiroshima". Several moments of uncomfortable silence followed. Then he said, "I was there". More silence. Then he said "So was my wife". More silence. Then he finally said "She died".

isnot Indonesia considered as islamic country?? so how you would be allowed to carry out mission activity out there?
interesting recollections though,welcome!

[Indy Coug]

Indonesia used to be controlled (at least in part) by the Dutch. When we lived in Holland, someone got called from our ward to serve in Jakarta in 1978.

P.S. Indonesian food rocks!

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by mindfulcoug

isnot Indonesia considered as islamic country?? so how you would be allowed to carry out mission activity out there?
interesting recollections though,welcome!

Non-arab, non-Persian Muslims have historically exhibited more tolerance in light of other cultural amenities.

[microlex]

WARNING! What follows is probably more than you want to know about LDS missionaries in Indonesia.

Missionary work started in Indonesia in January 1970 when six elders were transfered there from Singapore. When I arrived in September 1971 four of the original six were still there, and my group of five raised the number of missionaries in the country to 18. One of the original six that I knew is as of July the mission president there. He is the first foreign missionary to be the president of that mission.

More Moslems live in Indonesia that any other country, but the country itself is NOT an Islamic state. There is a modicum of official religious freedom. At that time Indonesians on the island of Java were very tolerant about religion. In Aceh, sight of the recent tidal wave, the Moslems were more fanatic. Now, due to Saudi investment in rigorously fanatic schools, there is now reportedly more fanaticism.

We were small enough then that the government did not lean excessively on us. About the time I went home we were getting big enough for the department of religion to really notice us.

Over time missionaries had more restrictions on them. We could go door to door, later they could not. Visas became harder to get, and by 1979 elders had to leave the country every six weeks or so to renew a visa. This meant going to Singapore. In 1980 all foreign missionaries left the country. Many were transfered to the Philippines. The mission continued with local missionaries.

About 2002 more foreign elders were sent there for the first time since about 1979. The first ones back were NOT from the USA. They were from Germany, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. By and by more American elders have been sent. I understand that 10 new elders were recently at the MTC in Provo.

I really enjoyed the country. At that time it was proto-typical third world squalor, and they were finally overcoming the immediate effects of a civil war from the late sixties, but the people were great.

[MikeWaters]

I forgot a doozy from my mission:

The time I was in the 2nd floor of our 3-story concrete apartment building, and a 8.2 earthquake hit, lasting a full minute.

That was exciting.