I’d never do another one, but if I had a chance to go back and influence my past 21-year-old self (in Primer-esque fashion, perhaps?), I’d still tell her to go.

Oh, and for the record? I think you are a phenomenal missionary. :)

Aw, Katie. I am sorry your mission was such a terrible experience. Missions are the part of Mormonism that I’m most envious of and I always thought it would be a blast to do one. I’ve told my husband he’s lucky I wasn’t Mormon because I almost certainly would not have attended school Winter Semester 2003, the semester we started dating. I turned 21 in January 2003 and likely would have skipped school that semester so I could leave on a mission ASAP.

The one thing about marrying Paul which made me a little sad was knowing I would never again get to do Protestant missions. /sigh

Jack, LOL. My inner perfectionist killed my inner party girl pretty quick, I’m ashamed to say. I even remember writing in my mission journal that my biggest flaw as a human being was my tendency towards levity. (?!?!) Sometimes I feel like my mission was this miserable vortex that sucked all the joy and life out of me–and it took me a couple years to fully recover.

And yes. We certainly DID have guys pretending they wanted to learn about Jesus when all they really wanted was some American-with-a-capital-A, if you know what I mean. The worst was this married dude who followed me around Bulgaria for about 6 months. He sent me registered mail, gifts, heartbroken emails, wrote me songs on his ukulele–all of which I ignored–until I finally had to sic my mission president on him to get him to leave me alone. His best email ever? “IF YOU HAVE ANY DIGNITY AT ALL,” he cried, “you will respond to this email NOW!”

Well, we both know about how much dignity I have. I clicked delete.

And I expect you to call me on it if I am.

I’m not going to support unfair personal attacks just in the name of clan loyalty.

Part of being family is telling your siblings when they’re out of line.

You were out of line.

Might I suggest this for your WordPress avatar?

Cheers.

I don’t know for sure if this comment will reach you, but here goes. your comment on markcares blog directed at me to “put a sock in it” was extremely rude. where i come from, mormons stick together. so you didn’t like my comment? tough. don’t read it. i routinely skip yours. especially the false doctrine you spouted about blacks and the priesthood. you come off as pretty obnoxious.

I am not impressed.

ladonna

Did you ever have problems with people pretending they wanted to hear about the gospel when they really just wanted to talk to a pretty American? That was a big problem for me when I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

But don’t think for a moment that meant I wasn’t judgmental too. People seem to be acting like judgmentalism is solely the province of the strict and conservative-minded.

It isn’t.