LDS Missionaries Have Nightmares of Being Sent to the Middle of Nowhere Or Vernal.
BY ROBERT KIRBY SALT LAKE TRIBUNE COLUMNIST
Editor's Note: Robert Kirby is away this week. This is a repeat of an earlier column.
One of the neighbor kids is waiting for his LDS mission call. It's kind of interesting to watch Paul fret because I know what he is going through. He's afraid of getting sent to some horrible place where the people are weird and indifferent to his message and suffering. Like maybe Vernal.
Going on a mission is a rite of passage for a lot of LDS kids. I went on one to a place where evolution and human rights hadn't exactly caught on. I have fond memories of it. Three, in fact.
If you are Mormon (and in some cases even if you are not), along about the time you turn 19, people start asking if you have submitted your papers. "Your papers" is said the same way people around here say "the church." Everyone knows what you are talking about.
The papers are an application to go on a mission. They resemble a standard bank loan application except that the questions do not follow politically correct guidelines. Also, if you get turned down, you supposedly stand a good chance of going to hell. Which, in the long run, might be better than where the church would have sent you.
Submitting your papers isn't the way the church called people on missions back in the old days. A hundred years ago, they called you right up out of the congregation and packed you off to England or the Sandwich Islands before the closing song. None of this waiting around for God's word to come through the mail.
Back when I went, the process was not as streamlined as it is today. I waited for about two months until the letter came. Reading my destination, I remember wondering what I had done to make God so mad at me.
Back in the '70s, Mormon missionary legend had it that serving God wasn't nearly as important as where God wanted you to serve. "Where" was a good indication of your current standing. Good kids got sent to places where they didn't have to swallow their food two or three times to keep it down. Bad kids ended up in places that even National Geographic wouldn't go.
Actually, where you are sent isn't as bad as waiting for your call in the first place. Of course, you couldn't have convinced me of this when I was living in a cinder-block outhouse in Orina del Toro, with a companion who wouldn't stop crying. By then, I was waiting to come home.
But waiting for your call is the worst. Weird thoughts start occurring to you.
What if the church has a mission in Antarctica? Do they still cut people's heads off in New Guinea? Will a Book of Mormon stop a blow-gun dart? Which one of my close pals will my girlfriend marry?
Rather than worry, missionaries should focus on the positive. There's nothing more positive than the highly frowned-upon Mission Call Lotto, invented by me.
Mission Call Lotto is played the same way sports and birth pools are played. Five bucks gets you your choice of mission. But if you win, you only get 50 percent of the pool. The rest goes to the missionary so he can buy something he will need for his mission. More white shirts, maybe some bug spray or even a rocket launcher.
I got five bucks that says Paul is going to Orina del Toro.
Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby lives in Springville. The self-described "OxyMormon" welcomes mail at P.O. Box 684, Springville, UT 84663, or e-mail at dark@slckrck.com.
Page Modified March 13, 1999