in about two or three weeks i will get a white envelope in the mail. it will be from the city i was born in, the state capital of utah, and the headquarters of my crazy religion. it will say, on the nice church letterhead, something like this:dear sister, you are hereby called to serve in the such and such mission, in such and such city, country, for a period of 18 months, leaving behind all other personal affairs. you will report to the missionary training center on wednesday, such and such a date, 2007. etc, etc. sincerely, the first presidency and quorum of the twelve apostles of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. and that means, that on such and such a date, i will disappear from life as i currently know it; give up such privileges as wearing trousers, watching movies, talking to complete strangers on the internet, and going for walks by myself; and instead take up a diet of scripture, service, and teaching, possibly learning a foreign language. it's going to be weird. the decision to do this hasn't been exactly easy, though it wasn't exactly hard either. i guess mostly my going on this mission is just the thing that happens next. i'm anxious. i'm a little frightened. i don't know what will happen to me while i'm wearing that little black name tag, representing this church. i don't know where i will go. but it is only eighteen months, anyway. i'll survive, i'm sure. i started a whole thread for this topic because it is traditional to take a moment and present a guess to the missionary-to-be about which of the 300+ world-wide missions he or she might be called to serve in. and so i open the field for anyone here who might care to throw out a prediction. there is a list of all the currently operating missions in the church, if you like. i'll let you all know when the white envelope shows up and what it has to tell me.
*learns mind-control techniques to persuade CoJCoLDS to send you to England* and just in case you get sent to Hicksville... *learns alien mind-control techniques to persuade you that you were actually sent to england* You'll probably get Mexico now...
I blindly picked, Poland, Warsaw, but you might get Tahiti, Papeete. I guess either one of those places would be an interesting place to spend 18 months.
There's a mission in Toulouse, I often see them around the city center... Heh, with a bit of luck I might get to pester you live But then with Ben's newfound powers, you'll probably end up in Antartica trying to convert the penguins. Good luck plaid, sounds like quite an adventure
Micronesia Guam - I'm not actually sure where it is apart from somewhere in the pacific. I'm surprised that there are only two missions in France. Hope you don't get Mongolia. Good Luck with it though, where-ever you go.
I was lookign around on the swedish mission and found this part of the site Things That Are Different in Sweden Some of the things are untrue since the list is old, but still. none of those things are very strange, are they?
I pick Kiev, Ukraine, 'cause that's where I'm from . But if you get sent to any other more-or-less Russian-speaking place, let me know and I'll give you some tips on what to say and what not to eat . Best of luck! edited to get rid of a snooty word "colloquialism"!
I'll guess for Stockholm then. :biggrin: Are you not allowed spontaneous social interaction with anyone outside your church during these months at all?
I vote Vladivostok. I've always liked that name. Wherever you go it will be a great adventure. Enjoy it.
no, we are. the whole point of serving a mission is to get to know the people you're serving and teach them about the gospel. there are a lot of rules though. since i'm a girl, wearing skirts is one of them. no wasting time on the internet is another of them. depending on which mission i get sent to, i may be allowed to email my family once a week. if i'm called to somewhere in the states, i probably won't even get that.
Wherever you end up, you'll see things through a new perspective, I'm sure you'll be fine - good luck!
I think the one in Ljubljana is actually a few hundred meters away, if I'm not mistaken. I've talked to a couple of nice boys (ok, members of the church... but it's hard to think anything else but polite young boys about them, with freckles and all ) a few months back, and I seem to remember them saying they lived near by. So if you get that, I'll be happy to provide you with some internet time Or at least some company every now and then, if you want.
thanks for the good wishes, everyone. lipi, you are very generous, but i hope i'll have the diligence to follow mission rules, wherever i get sent. missionaries are pretty young to be out doing all the work they do, but that's part of the miracle i guess. that all those ridiculous 19-year-old boys haven't shamed the church into the ground by now.
That depends which ones are untrue... Some of these are, in my opinion, more telling about America than about Sweden, but many of them sound really odd to me. Plaid, I think you're a loony. :wink: I think you'll get sent to... Guatemala! Or Colorado Springs, where you can try to convert Om. Best of luck with it, and let us know as soon as you hear.
I used to live up the road from the mission in Sydney's North. It was between 150 students and the bottle shop, it was always interesting when they tried to convert us to and from the grog shop. They also never knew how to react when people honestly responded to their question of 'what religion are you?' with 'I'm a pagan'. The training obviously never covered this one because they instantly accused her of worshipping the devil... Hope you have a better time of it than the guys down the raod. I don't think they made one convert.
Hicksville is very nice, thank you very much. Best of luck with it all, Plaid. And just to let you know, I got stopped walking to work yesterday by two young mormon kids asking me if I've read the book of Mormon. They seemed a bit surprised when I told them I was paging through it. Poor kids seemed caught off guard
I'm sorry but no way am I able to call two 18 year old kids "elder" without smiling. I nearly laughed at their nametags.
Hah! My Jehovah's Witnesses have stopped visiting me, which I suspect is because they could never counter my arguments. They reminded me strongly of Nobby and Colon, and they used to make me laugh. There was a big fat one who was always totally nonplussed by my answers to his questions (he never answered anything I said, just reset to the next question) and a small, skinny one who would hide to one side until I said something that interested him, at which point he would start sniggering and come into view to say something not quite in line with the teachings of his church. Then the fat one would quickly shut him up and they'd leave.
Ireland, of course! We need more! I haven't had anybody call to my door since I was fifteen or sixteen and I stayed talking to them for two hours. Of course, the fact that they were two really cute boys did help...is it wrong to delay them on their good work because they looked nice? And if you come to Ireland, I give you a personal invite to come visit for a cup of tea...
You can come to Singapore Don't really think it would be much of an adventure though. Jakarta, Indonesia would be interesting...although a hard place to live, and they're not all to fond of non-muslims
so two weeks have gone by. i just checked our mail box. nothing. and so i continue to wait. it could come tomorrow. or i might have to wait a whole nother week. what suspense...
both. it wavers, the nervousness and excitedness. half the time i'm very impatient, and half the time i'm quite terrified about everything. i hope i'll get all my emotional junk overwith by the time i actually get out there--then i won't have to worry about being homesick. but time will tell.
Everyone I know who's gone abroad for an extended period of time says you mustn't cave in to homesickness in the first month. There are a lot of groups that don't allow volunteers to ring home in the first month (or at least discourage it), but they all think they can't stand it and want to go home, and then after a month they're fine. Of course, you've had experience of spending a long time away from home before, Plaid.
Imgine, it's in these stituations where the board becomes great. You have a group of friends that don't depend on your geograpical location. If you feel your missing people sneak away to an internet cafe or such and gorge on a slice of board pie. It tastes nice.
as a missionary i won't be allowed phone calls at all except on mother's day and christmas. no message boards either. they are serious when then mean 'leave behind all other personal affairs.' i'll be too busy focusing on the work to get too homesick, i imagine.
culllllllllllllllllllllllllllllt... ... oops, did i say that out loud? seriously though, I find it rather amusing that you get mothers day but not easter.
hmm... i never thought about that. but that's how it is. don't ask me why we don't get father's day along with mother's day either. i didn't make up the rules.
That means you won't be able to write New Plaid Identity. That sucks. Maybe you'll get sent to Newfoundland, Canada. Most people either hate the place or love it. I don't know of any missions there, but I don't bother looking so that probably doesn't count for much.
I say, fudge that! Why would God ever want you to cut off contact with the people you love? Basides, message boards don't count. This place is clearly an impersonal affair?
Letters still exist? Well blow me down with a feather. Not only do they send you too some boony backwater of the world like Sydney or Canada but they take away access to all technology as well. What is this a mission for Fred Flinstone?
The day I get an "enlarge your penis" letter that someone has paid to send, I think I'll move to a desert island.
But presumably using the same materials used for letter-writing for other timewasting endeavours (such as doodling) would be OK. But you do get junkmail, I presume. Or am I the only one who has to wade through kebab shop menus to get to the front door every day? (I suppose I could always clean some of them up...)
some missions do allow emailing, grace. my brother in Romania is allowed a small bit of time to email us once a week. usually email is restricted to just family, but it depends on the mission rules. i think generally it's foreign missions that allow email, since regular mail is so slow to such far flung places. if i get sent anywhere in the states, i most likely will just get letters... but then, it depends. a lot depends on who your mission president is and how he feels about email, i guess. anyway, we'll see.... i'm hoping to find out where i'm going this week. if i don't die of anticipation beforehand.
I do get a little but nothing as bad in quantity or quality as the c..p I get in my mailbox(es) Plaid, we're forgetting one vital question : what is going to happen to NPI ?
Typical! I can understand a ban on web-browsing, but email is just another form of communication - and if you're allowed to communicate with your family by letter and phone, it seems very odd to me to disallow email and instant messenger. Get into the 21st Century, people! Also, how come Romania gets a capital letter, and I don't? :wink:
heh. to answer katcal's question which i pretty much overlooked before, the plaid identity has survived lengthy hiatuses before. i'm convinced the story will never end, and so leaving it alone for 18 months isn't such a big deal. i'll pick it up again and it will still be crazy and random.
If you get sent on a faraway mission, can we send you snail mail letters with news fro Boardania, the occasional Plaid Identity sketch, and other nonsense to keep you on the right track?
my letter came today in the mail. they're sending me to the Canada Calgary mission. i head out on July 11th. holy cow.
