Craziest mission stories.

[SoonerCoug]

Here are my top 10 mission stories. When I say top, I mean most crazy (mostly horrible and tragic). I served in Russia, if anyone cares.

1. Fellow missionary was murdered and my former companion (his companion at the time) stabbed, but survived.

2. Gun held to my head during a street robbery.

3. Next door neighbor had his head cut off by the mafia.

4. Branch President disappeared to Argentina unexpectedly with his wife. A few months later, the mafia found him and cut his head off.

5. Had my phone line cut and peep hole painted over as 5 men broke through my windows. Luckily, I had tear gas (given to me by a cop member of the Church after the gun incident). Also, I called the cops just before they cut the phone line. They should have cut the phone line before they started breaking in.

6. I saw a dude get run over by a street car and his body was cut into at least 3 large pieces.

7. I found marijuana growing around the mission office.

8. I attended the Hare Krishna temple with my companion and bought a necklace made from a special tree, and I was told that if I would wear the necklace it would prevent me from being reincarnated as a dog as long as I never eat meat. I went home and made a hamburger.

9. A KGB guy was assigned to follow me because I was trying to help an unemployed English-speaking Russian guy by paying him a thousand dollars (money actually from my parents) to translate something for me...and the KGB guy was trying to catch me employing someone for the Church secretly and evading proper procedures. When I realized I was being followed and questioned about incidents that happened inside an apartment (which could have only been heard by a bug), I told the unemployed Russian dude to take the money as a gift and not worry about translating anything. (The translation idea was an attempt to make the exchange less awkward.)

10. I had an semi-elderly female investigator describe her sexual affairs with random men "from the yard" in graphic detail in the middle of the fourth discussion. (We tried to stop her.) It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

[Surfah]

Um. Yeah. If any of those are true it's a damn good thing you served in Russia and not Arkansas.

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

Here are my top 10 mission stories. When I say top, I mean most crazy (mostly horrible and tragic). I served in Russia, if anyone cares.

1. Fellow missionary was murdered and my former companion (his companion at the time) stabbed, but survived.

2. Gun held to my head during a street robbery.

3. Next door neighbor had his head cut off by the mafia.

4. Branch President disappeared to Argentina unexpectedly with his wife. A few months later, the mafia found him and cut his head off.

5. Had my phone line cut and peep hole painted over as 5 men broke through my windows. Luckily, I had tear gas (given to me by a cop member of the Church after the gun incident). Also, I called the cops just before they cut the phone line. They should have cut the phone line before they started breaking in.

6. I saw a dude get run over by a street car and his body was cut into at least 3 large pieces.

7. I found marijuana growing around the mission office.

8. I attended the Hare Krishna temple with my companion and bought a necklace made from a special tree, and I was told that if I would wear the necklace it would prevent me from being reincarnated as a dog as long as I never eat meat. I went home and made a hamburger.

9. A KGB guy was assigned to follow me because I was trying to help an unemployed English-speaking Russian guy by paying him a thousand dollars (money actually from my parents) to translate something for me...and the KGB guy was trying to catch me employing someone for the Church secretly and evading proper procedures. When I realized I was being followed and questioned about incidents that happened inside an apartment (which could have only been heard by a bug), I told the unemployed Russian dude to take the money as a gift and not worry about translating anything. (The translation idea was an attempt to make the exchange less awkward.)

10. I had an semi-elderly female investigator describe her sexual affairs with random men "from the yard" in graphic detail in the middle of the fourth discussion. (We tried to stop her.) It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

Here are my top 10 -

1. I ate beans and rice for lunch everyday of my mission

2. I walked a lot

3. I had lots of brazilian teenage girls whistle at me

4. it never got below 80 degrees

5. I got scabies from a companion

6. I saw a drunk guy in dress ride a bike at about 10-15 mph right into a telephone poll (morning after carnival)

7. I ate a fruits of the sea omellette that was like eating boogers

8. there was a prison break as we were walking home one night. rifle shots from the guard tower were shot into the street. I hid under a bench that was generally used for people waiting for the bus

9. I was interviewing a 20 year old for baptism when the police busted down the door and dragged him away

10. I had a gentleman tell me about the saint francisco who if you left a glass of water in front of his statue for 2-3 weeks he would drink half of it. Apparently evaporation hasn't made it to the brazilian school system

[SteelBlue]

1. I had a guy turn a "last door" moment into something else. He was not really listening as we taught the 1st discussion and finally he interrupted and said "one of my hobbies is taking video, would you guys mind if I filmed you for a while?" He offered us drinks while he went to get his camera equipment at the back of the apartment. We left before he came back out.

2. A crazy, bearded man who looked exactly like Animal from the muppets once followed us along the doors while tracting for a couple of blocks. With each door he got a little closer to us beginning at the street and moving to sidewalks and closer. He was breathing hard, like a kid pretending to be a monster and staring us down. We kept on working but of course he was scaring the hell out of anyone who answered their door. It finally reached the point where on the final door he was on the doorstep with us. I kept telling my comp to just ignore him. A middle aged lady opened the door, and despite this lunatic staring at her from over my shoulder she listened to the entire approach (a rarity in Belgium). This guy is breathing like he just ran a 100m dash and he has his meanest face on and I ask her if she knows the guy. "No, I assumed he was with you." Needless to say, she didn't have time to hear our message.

3. I ate horse meat.

4. Women occasionally answered the door topless. Not once did this occur with a woman you might hope would answer the door topless.

5. We got to put cool things on our french fries. Mayonaisse and peanut sauce being two of my favorite.

6. I had 4 bikes stolen. The final time one of my bikes was stolen, we had 4 elders who had all locked our bikes to the same pole. We had 4 u-bolt locks and 4 of the built in back wheel locks that are common in Europe. When we came out the next morning they were all gone. I lifted up on the pole, and sure enough it came right up out of the ground with ease. A sucker pole.

7. I was about to be placed under arrest for not having my passport on my person (our visas had all expired and the govt. was dragging their feet granting new ones at the time). Heading for likely deportation, I name dropped the name of a cop we'd taught from several towns away on the outskirts of Brussels. The cop who was arresting us happened to be good friends with said cop and immediately let us go with no questions asked.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

2. A crazy, bearded man who looked exactly like Animal from the muppets once followed us along the doors while tracting for a couple of blocks. With each door he got a little closer to us beginning at the street and moving to sidewalks and closer. He was breathing hard, like a kid pretending to be a monster and staring us down. We kept on working but of course he was scaring the hell out of anyone who answered their door. It finally reached the point where on the final door he was on the doorstep with us. I kept telling my comp to just ignore him. A middle aged lady opened the door, and despite this lunatic staring at her from over my shoulder she listened to the entire approach (a rarity in Belgium). This guy is breathing like he just ran a 100m dash and he has his meanest face on and I ask her if she knows the guy. "No, I assumed he was with you." Needless to say, she didn't have time to hear our message.

Back in Indiana, former BYU OL recruit Junior Kato and his companion were teaching a lady in the neighborhood. One day her husband got this great idea of dressing up in a Teletubbies costume (the green one) and following the elders as they tracted the rest of the neighborhood. Obviously that unsettled the neighbors enough that they didn't get in anywhere else.

Despite that, the Teletubby did pose for the elders so they could take his picture.

[MikeWaters]

1. Lots of native boobs in the Pacific. Including flashing teenagers (less common).

2. The couple mission, Elder R. had a habit of watching the women wash clothes (visible from mission house). After he went home, the zone leader found a Swimsuit edition SI in his desk. We got a chuckle out of that.

3. The elder who was notorious for spending at least an hour in the bathroom every morning. His former comp told me that one time he had knocked on teh door and told him to hurry up and the elder blew up and didn't talk to him for three days. After he went home, we found a hidden jar of vaseline with his name on it in the zone house. We got a good laugh out of that one.

4. Pot plants 5 feet tall next to one of the mission shacks.

5. Rats everywhere. The elder who replaced me killed over 50 in 3 months, then they stopped coming into the shack.

6. First night in the primitive islands, outhouse not functioning, going into the dark jungle to take a dump. Scared *&(#$less.

7. The brouhaha that occurred when we dug our outhouse next to a well.

8. The brouhaha when for a second time the bathroom/outhouse was dug next to a well.

9. The brouhaha that occurred when a kid asked me for some gum, and I gave him the piece in my mouth. You'd have thought I had cut off his arms.

10. Over several months helped build a rock dock for a member, hauling rocks in our truck. He went inactive the day it was done.

11. The time my companion rode his bike full-on into a telephone pole.

12. The time my companion told me he had never read a book in his life.

13. The time when a guy, whom I now believe to be an international criminal, was repainting his boat, and painted it white, green, and red and I said "looks like a Christmas tree."

14. When I went back at the end of my mission to my original area, ran into someone who had a longtime investigator's cell number, called it, and said "WHO GAVE YOU THIS NUMBER!?"

15. Riding in the motorboat back to our areas in blowing rain and 6 foot chop.

16. The brouhaha in the elementary school (we taught English) when I said before a test that I would fail anyone who cheated, and I followed through. I was fired.

[ute4ever]

Ooh, if only I had time to play this game but am running out the door. Suffice it to say that during the course of my mission, I grew close to a friend who worked in the Confidential Records Department of the Church Office Building. I would frequently write to her as a therapeutic way of venting, because I thought she would be the only one who would believe my stories, because they were too bizarre. (She reads the details of evey missionary worldwide who gets disciplined and/or sent home).

Once around my 20th month, she wrote to me, "someday when former missionaries are sitting around comparing their craziest stories, you will not be allowed to participate, because you will win every time."

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by ute4ever

Ooh, if only I had time to play this game but am running out the door. Suffice it to say that during the course of my mission, I grew close to a friend who worked in the Confidential Records Department of the Church Office Building. I would frequently write to her as a therapeutic way of venting, because I thought she would be the only one who would believe my stories, because they were too bizarre. (She reads the details of evey missionary worldwide who gets disciplined and/or sent home).

Once around my 20th month, she wrote to me, "someday when former missionaries are sitting around comparing their craziest stories, you will not be allowed to participate, because you will win every time."

I believe you. That was funny when you spilled real names and someone on the board freaked out because one of the guys was his friend and now a "respectable" Mormon.

[Indy Coug]

Mine are pretty dull

1. Those rare days in England when the sun was shining and it was over 70 degrees, people would get loaded and then wander the streets. One guy approached us and started spelling everything. "You guys are missionaries, right? M-i-s-s-i-o-n-a-r-i-e-s." I said "Yes! Y-e-s." He went on for quite some time with normal drunken babble interrupted with intermittent spelling of some of the larger words he'd use. We counted it as a first discussion since no one else would talk to us that day.

2. A lady answered the door in a knitted sweater that was not high-density. Two extraordinarily large, long nipples stuck through the sweater as it was your normal English cold day.

3. My Aussie companion had a air gun. He went on a workover with the district leader and took his gun with him. They saw a pheasant out in the field and the DL pulled over and my comp shot it. Our landlord was a very good cook.

4. My Aussie comp and I would switch accents on our door approach since no one would let us in anyway.

5. In one really old neighborhood, my Aussie comp would use the door approach "We're angels sent from God and it's time for you to come home." They'd just politely say "Not interested." and close their door.

6. The brother of a very famous LDS QB was busted for getting a girl pregnant and having porn mags in his suitcase. I got paired up with his comp immediately afterwards and he was a complete burn-out from having to deal with that guy.

7. Went to a church meeting with 10 guys that believed in a "prophet" from Arizona who turned out to be an ex-Mormon. Their prayers were virtually identical to the Zoramite Rameumptom prayers.

8. Four missionaries barely got out of the King's Cross tube station right before a massive fire killed 30 people.

9. Other than that, it was 24 months of uneventful knocking on doors and being perpetually wet and cold.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I hesitate to wander into any discussion like this if ute4ever is on board. Nevertheless...

1) Had an apt right next to the local Japanese mafia headquarters. Scars, missing fingers, the whole nine yards. But they spent most of their time polishing a big black Caddilac and playing catch.

2) We were working a train station one night near a port and a semi-drunk sailor (I think he was Australian) came up to chat with us because we were the only non-Japanese around. He kept asking us for directions to the closest whorehouse and for recommendations on which one would have the best whores. Like we would know. We got a good laugh out of that one.

3) Occasionally a drunk old man who was missing a leg or arm would see us across the street and start yelling and cussing at us. WWII vets. That was always ackward.

4) I was in Japan the day that John Lennon was killed. People kept stopping us and yelling "What's the matter with you crazy Americans?!" John Lennon was like a god over there.

5) One of our recent converts hung himself in his apt. Haunts me to this day.

6) We had an investigator (and I use that term loosely) who was a horny middle-aged woman. She would hit me up for sex all the time, typically in front of her husband. He would just grin and shrug his shoulders. We kept trying to ditch her and she would show up at our apt. in suggestive clothing talking dirty and trying to hand me envelopes full of cash. It was about too much for this small-town Utah boy to handle.

7) We are biking past a row of Japanese "love hotels" one day and a guy waved us over. He said that he had suffered a groin injury in a car wreck a few years back and was unable since that time to keep his wife satisfied. He was hoping the two of us would go up to her room in the hotel and take care of business for him.

Sorry. I can't think of ten.