Posted by:
flash
(
)
Date: April 12, 2015 06:59PM
My fellow RMs, this Monday, April 13, marks the anniversary of the happiest day I have ever known. It is the day, 36 years ago, a 2 year prison sentence of hard labor in the Virginia Roanoke Mission, came to an end.
I have celebrated every April 13 since then as a personal holiday and I invite all RMs and non-RMs alike to come and celebrate with me. Come and enjoy my account of the overwhelming joy of my last day in the mission prison system and of coming home.
For those of you who served missions, you know how happy of a day it was when you came home and could restart your life. You knew that there would be no more daily life sucking duties of tracting to do or enduring another attempt by some prick mission leader to guilt trip you for something petty or stupid.
Below is my personal account of my last day on my mission and I invite all RMs to also post about your last day and the happiness you felt about coming home from your mission. Many on this board, me included, would love to hear your accounts of your last day on a mission.
Many of you may have seen my story before, so please excuse my repetition, but I know there are those new on the board that have not.
Here is my account. Grab a beer and a good cigar and enjoy.
****************************************
MY LAST DAY IN THE VIRGINIA ROANOKE MISSION
At long last the happiest day I have ever known came. It was the last day I had to spend in the Virginia Roanoke Mission. That day was Friday, April 13, 1979. And for me, it is a date that lives in infamy. My sentence in this mission gulag was over. Friday the 13th was my lucky day.
I woke up at the usual time of 6:30am, had my shower, dressed, and sat myself down to a bowl of "Captain Crunch" while my companion showered. Sitting there alone, looking around, and seeing my packed bags lying on my bed, it finally hit me that I would never have to sleep on that torturous lumpy bed or wake up to another morning in this or any other Virginia cockroach infested dump of an apartment again. No more would I have to go mindlessly tract all day in order to fill a weekly report showing hours of futile work of banging on doors. With each spoonful of Captain Crunch, a mental list began to form in my mind of the things I would never have to do again. The list included the following…
1. I would never have to go knock on another door to try to convince an already happy person, that they could become happier if they gave up 10% of their gross paycheck, sacrificed their weekends from being with their families to perform smothering religious duties of endless callings, alienate themselves from extended family and friends, and eventually earn the “privilege” to enter a building that looks like a bowling trophy in order to pantomime disemboweling themselves while dressed up as the Pillsbury Dough Boy. (Talk about a tough sell.)
2. I would never again have to sweat like a pig while riding a bicycle wearing long underwear under a suite in the Virginia summer heat and stifling humidity or suffer frostbite in the bone chilling Virginia winter weather. (I hate bicycles now and can never bring myself to get on one again.)
3. I would never again have to eat only starchy pasta dishes for my only food because of a lack of money to buy proper food. (Pasta dishes of any kind are no longer a block in my food pyramid.)
4. I would never again have to endure undeserved ridicule or reaming from any church leader and especially from a pinhead insurance salesman GA-wannabe mission president named Frank A. Moscon. (I am so glad he is dead and I could not be less sad. I hope his death was agonizingly slow and coupled with unbearable searing pain.)
5. I would never again be in an environment that produces overwhelming suicidal depression and loneliness. (I am still a happy person.)
6. I would never again spend another lonely Christmas away from loved ones. (I worship Santa now with my loved ones around me.)
7. I would never again have to be shackled to some dude 24/7 that I did not want to be with. (Even a happy marriage could not survive such shackling)
8. I would never again have to be deprived of the enjoyment of music. (I have music on most of the time and I have never played Mormon Tab songs again.)
9. I would never again have to follow a set of idiotic, burdensome, and double-bind rules while trying to perform a hopeless life-sucking religious duty.
10. I would never again have to deprive myself of the love, the touch, or affections of a woman.
11. I would never again have to respond to anyone calling me "Elder" or just my last name.
12. I would never again have to go tracting. (To this day, I don’t even like to knock on my neighbors door.)
13. I will never have to…
You can fill in the rest, my fellow RM's. You know that this list is almost endless.
Oh, what joy and happiness I felt as I thought about the things I would not have to do ever again. I sat there just relishing in the thoughts of being home again, restarting my life again, being with Kathy, my beautiful Japanese girlfriend, again, being called by my first name again, and being able to just find time to be alone again. I felt so happy inside that I poured myself another bowl of "Captain Crunch" so fast, half of the cereal ended up all over the table and floor. “Oh well”, I thought, “I might as well let the kitchen's cockroaches celebrate with me”, as I kicked the cereal that fell on the floor to underneath the refrigerator.
When I finished my 2nd bowl, I said to myself “…let the next sucker Elder clean it. I am outta here…" as I threw the bowl and spoon into the sink and watched them bounced around.
This particular morning seemed so fresh and I felt so alive. I had not experienced such a wonderful morning for 2 years and I almost forgot what it felt like to live again. There was a nice cool breeze and the birds were singing. I still could not believe that the day of my escape from the Virginia Roanoke Mission arrived. As I carried my 2 bags down to the car, I started singing to myself the song by "The Guess Who", "....No time left you…on my way to better things...I found myself some wings...."
I had to go to the mission home in Roanoke to get my plane tickets so we drove to the other Elder’s apartment to bring them with us to the Martinsville bus terminal where I could book a seat on the local Greyhound bus to Roanoke. The “bus” was really a small van but I did not care. It was my escape vehicle from this Martinsville/Collinsville hellhole area. I was happy to see that I was the only passenger. The rest of the van was filled with cargo.
MY LAST BUS RIDE IN VIRGINIA
Just before the van was to leave; I said my goodbyes to my companion and the other 2 Elders. They wished me well and then I got into the van. I remember the looks of envy and jealousy on their faces. I knew they were wishing so hard to be in my place because their Friday would just be another lonely day of mind-numbing tracting. But not my Friday! I would never have to knock on another door again.
Once inside the van, I looked out the window at my fellow Elders for the last time, waved at them with a gloating smile, turned away, and never looked back. A huge wave of relief rolled over me and I let out an audible sigh as the van started on its journey to Roanoke. As the bus crawled through the town of Collinsville on the way to US highway 220, I looked at all the houses that I had fruitlessly knocked on for 9 months. What a colossal waste of my time, I thought. I could have been almost done with getting my degree instead. I could have spent many happy days with Kathy.
Once on the main highway, I spent the journey just relaxing and watching the countryside go by. For the first time in two years, I was able to enjoy all of the green foliage of Virginia without a black cloud of dread hanging over me of knowing that I would have to start tracting in yet another place once the journey was through. Every transfer, I always dreaded starting over again with knocking on doors that Elders had knocked on before, only to have the doors slammed in my face. I also dreaded moving into another cockroach infested dump of a place to live.
But today, this bus ride was special as this was my last bus ride, and the beginning of a long journey that would end with me at home and free from this mission hellhole for good. I felt so giddy inside. I felt like a little boy walking into Disneyland for the first time.
I tried to start a light conversation with the driver to end the obvious silence and this was proving difficult. The bus driver knew I was a Mormon missionary by the way I was dressed and the tell-tale nametag. At first, he seemed reluctant to talk with me probably for fear that I would start talking Mormonism to him. Sensing this, I told him that I was going home today and had no intention of discussing any aspect of religion or Mormonism. I said this while he watched me take off my name tag and put it in my pocket. I told him that he can call me by my first name and not Elder Flash. Hearing this he visibly relaxed and began to open up. We had fun conversations all the way to Roanoke. We talked about his job and the unusual cargos he had carried and about his poor experiences with other missionaries that he had bussed around.
We finally rolled into the Roanoke bus station around 8:30am. Before I got out, the driver commented to me that I was not like any of the other Elders he met before. He said I was genuine in my demeanor and well-mannered. I told him that I was from California and was not one of the “Utah-Idaho factory” Elders like those two over there on the platform, as I pointed to a couple of mission home office Elders waiting to drive me to the mission home. My comment made him laugh. I grabbed my bags from the van and the AP elders drove me to the mission home a few miles away.
IN THE BELLY OF THE MISSION BEAST FOR A BLESSED LAST TIME.
My travel itinerary showed that my plane from Roanoke to Washington DC would leave at 11:30AM, and the next day, I would hop on another plane at Dulles International to fly to California. One month before, I had made previous arrangements for someone to pick me up and give me a condensed tour of the Washington DC area.
In order to create this itinerary, I made up a story to the mission home saying that I wanted to go through the Washington DC temple before departing home and for them to create an itinerary for me to do this. Little did they know that my real goal was to only see the nation’s capital and the monuments on the Church's dime. Because I was able to fool them so successfully & easily, it proved to me once again, that the mission leadership had the inspiration and discernment of an old fence post.
While I waited around at the mission home for my departure hour, it was so nice to just sit knowing that I did not have to do any sort of missionary work. I did not have answer to anyone, not to a District Leader, or a Zone Leader, or an AP elder, and best of all, that pinhead mission president. I now only answered to me.
I found a nice reclining chair in the common area in order to pass the time until my departure to the Roanoke airport. I looked out the big picture windows in the common area at the woods nearby remembering how I looked at those same woods two years earlier wishing that I could run into them and escape. It was fun to think that now I was escaping but I would be walking out the front door instead of running into those woods.
I began reading several magazines that were lying on the table next to me such as Newsweek, Time, and National Geographic. I was two years behind on news and events and I found it so refreshing to read something other than some dumb-downed church publication. I was so fed up with church literature that I took the two Ensign magazines also lying on the end-table and stuffed them into the depths of the La-Z-Boy chair never to be seen again.
After a half hour of reading and enjoying the view of the woods, six new elders arrived from an earlier flight. They were fresh from the MTC and they were a mess. They looked so depressed, downcast, and sleep deprived. They reminded me of how depressed I felt when I first showed up at this miserable mission home.
While looking at them in their pitiful state, I felt this wave of bitter sickly sorrow and pity start to wash over me knowing their hell holes were just beginning. However, those bitter feelings were washed away by a delightful tidal wave rush of knowing that I was done with it all and I was LEAVING IN JUST 20 MINUTES! I had fewer minutes than they had months to endure this cesspool.
These new elders saw me reading "missionary-unapproved" material and one asked me, with a “holier-than-thou” Utah twanged voice, why I was there by myself and not with my companion. I just smiled and told him that my mission ended today and I was on my way home and before tomorrow ends, I will be kissing my girlfriend. Hearing this, a few of them looked like they were going to breakdown on the spot judging from the glassy look of their eyes. Two of them looked at me with such jealousy it was palpable.
Thinking to myself that they would have to put up with that pinhead Frank A. Moscon and his minions for the next 24 months made me smile knowingly at them but I did not taunt them more about going home. I had at least that much civility left in me after my two years of hell. If somehow they could know the bitter dregs of depression, loneliness, and isolated hellish living that awaited them for the next two years, I think they would have gone into the restroom and sliced each other’s wrists.
I politely brushed them off with a smile and went back to reading my Newsweek. They went off somewhere else in the common area but I did notice that one elder lagged behind and was staring longingly at the woods outside the common room window for some time. Did he want to escape into those woods like I did two years ago? I had little doubt that he did.
I rebuffed every prodding from the AP Elders to go and have the customary last interview with the mission president. Because of the falling out that I had with him four months earlier, nothing anyone could say would change my mind about talking one last time. Any desire to communicate with him had been fatally terminated. While I was there in the mission home, I did not even acknowledge his presence.
His clueless wife, Loya, tried to goad me into talking with her husband but I was immune to her tactics by now. Frank & Loya’s chance to be any kind of surrogate parents to me had long since passed. Frank’s never-ending harassments and Loya’s condescending speeches were more than I could take. If my parents were like that, I would have put myself up for adoption long ago. Looking up from my Newsweek magazine, I gave Loya a look that would have shriveled a rock, said nothing, and went back to my reading. She huffed off and was probably thinking "…how dare this lowly elder brush me off..." But I didn't care anymore what she or her pin-head husband thought. To me, they were now person’s non-grata. I just wanted out of there as soon as possible.
ONE LAST ROUND OF AP ELDER ARROGANCE
The time was getting close for me to be at the Roanoke airport so I asked one of the AP elders for my plane tickets. Earlier, a convert family from my last area had come to drive me to the airport to see me off. I took their offer. I no longer wanted to spend any more time in that mission home. Being there was serving no purpose and I would rather be elsewhere anyway. This Idaho idiot AP elder spouted off to me that only the mission president could give me the tickets (that he held in his hand) and that I did not have his or the MP's permission to leave the mission home yet.
Oh, so arrogant to the end, I thought. But I, being of much larger stature, pulled him aside into an empty hallway, and in a still small voice, told him that if he did not give me my plane tickets, this would be his last day as a fully functional human being and he would be harvesting potatoes from a wheelchair. I told him this as I was "helping" him tighten the knot of his tie by pulling it above his head. Needless to say, he loosened his grip on my tickets and I pulled them from his hand.
With plane tickets in hand, I grabbed my bags and walked out of that mission home with the family who came to see me off. We loaded my bags into the trunk of their car, and after taking one last picture with them, we drove away toward the Roanoke airport. How happy I was to see that Roanoke mission home fade away in the distance.
As the Roanoke airport came into view, my heart began to race with excitement. At last, I was finally done being a missionary. No more pinhead mission president. No more double-bind rules to follow. No more minders to contend with be it a companion or Zone leaders or APs. No more missionary nonsense of any kind to contend with.
SOON MY FEET WILL NO LONGER TOUCH VIRGINIA SOIL
At the Roanoke airport drop-off curb, I gave my hugs and said my goodbyes to the family that brought me there. After they drove away, I reached over to my coat pocket and quietly slipped my nametag into my coat pocket marking the end of the existence of Elder Flash. I went inside and checked in my one large bag keeping with me my carry-on. The woman behind the counter called me by my first name and I didn’t respond at first as no one ever called me by my first name for two long years. I was shocked at realizing that I had a first name. Funny how the little things you have been starved of for a long period of time are now such joys.
I collected my boarding pass and walked to the gate boarding area. Once there, reality hit me that I was finally alone. Even with the airport crowd walking around me, I felt such a thrill at being alone and being separated from the mission collective. Looking around, no other Elder was in sight and I could do as I please without worrying about some judgmental Elder reminding me of a mission rule for this or that.
It may seem hard to imagine why being alone is such a glorious experience. But when you have someone around you 24/7 for two years watching where you are, who you talk to, what you are reading, what you say, what you eat, and what you are wearing, being able to be alone again and accountable to no one is so refreshing its beyond words to describe.
I always cherished my alone-time as I always needed it to recharge myself. To have it stripped from me for two years proved to be very draining. Only Mormon missionaries or people in prison can really understand the joy of just finally being alone.
While waiting for the boarding call, I decided to finish purging myself of any Mormon missionary looks and accoutrements. I no longer wanted anyone to assume that I was a Mormon missionary. So I gathered together my nametag, the missionary white handbook, and a big heavy envelope of mission reports that I was given at the mission home. Finding the nearest trash bin, I tossed it all in creating a big thud as it hit the bottom of the nearly empty bin.
As all that crap disappear into that bin, another wave of relief washed over me. I stood there by the bin for a few moments letting it sink in that I was finally done with it all. No more reports to fill out. No more fantasy goals to record. No more tell-tale nametag. No more white handbook of smothering rules to follow, and no more of anything to remind me of being a missionary. The only papers I had left were my tickets. I jokingly amused myself thinking how these tickets were the "papers" I needed for my escape from the iron curtain of the Virginia Roanoke Mission.
To complete the purging of any missionary look, I went into the restroom and found an empty stall. Once inside, I removed my suite coat, vest, and tie and stuffed them into my carry-on bag. I then took out of my bag a nice blue colored dress shirt that I had been saving for over a year and proceeded to change shirts. I unwrapped the blue dress shirt from its plastic wrap and hung it on the door hook. Then grabbing the lapels of my old white shirt, I began ripping it off my body popping off most of the buttons in the process. It felt so satisfying to rip off that old worn out white shirt and to watch the dislodged buttons ricochet between the walls of the stall then to dance all over the floor.
With my new blue dress shirt on, I considered flushing that white shirt down the toilet but refrained myself from such amusement and just threw it into the restroom’s garbage bin. From that moment, at 10:50am on April 13, 1979, I have never again worn a white shirt again. Even today, the thought of putting on a white shirt of any kind disgusts me. I cannot even wear a white T-shirt.
With my non-missionary look, I found myself a seat and happily noticed that the people who I sat next to me did not even notice or care who I was or look at me funny. I was just another fellow flyer. It was so liberating and refreshing to look and be a normal person again. I quietly celebrated my new transformation by imbibing in an "evil" can of Dr. Pepper I got from a vending machine and read an abandoned Sports Illustrated magazine I found on the seat next to me. Oh, that Dr. Pepper tasted so good and was so refreshing ice-cold, and and as I read the Sports Illustrated, I was so glad I never found the phrase “and it came to pass” printed anywhere. Life was getting better by the minute.
About 45 minutes later, the call to board was announced. I made my way to the outside gate boarding area to the stairs leading up to the Piedmont plane door, got onto the plane, and found my window seat. Soon everyone was boarded, the hatch was shut, and the plane began pulling away from the gate.
The flight attendants began scrambling to get everyone the drink of their choice and I asked for an “evil” Coke. It seemed like it took forever for that plane to taxi down the runway to prepare to take off. As it did so, I mumbled quietly to myself, "Oh please let there be no mechanical problems." I could not bear the prospect of returning to the gate. I wanted so badly to be out of Virginia and as far away from that Roanoke mission home as I could get.
When the plane roared down the runway, lifted off, and its wheels no longer touched Virginia soil, I felt a feeling inside like poison was beginning to drain out of my body. Two years of amassed missionary poison that had cankered my soul was draining away. The faster and higher the plane went, the faster the poison seemed to drain out of me. What a relief it was being whisked away from that god-awful mission.
As the plane continued climbing, I thought how for two miserable years, I longed for this day to come. I had dreams of this day. I thought about escaping & leaving every day and now I was flying away at last. To convince myself that I was not in some lucid dream, I pushed on the side of the plane and squeezed the armrest to convince myself that they were substantial objects. I thought over and over again, I was not dreaming! I was really on my way home! “It’s really true!! I almost cried!
From my window seat, I looked down at the ever shrinking Virginia countryside and thought about how two precious years of my life were forfeited and wasted there. Two precious years; where instead, I could have been in college getting my electrical engineering degree, enjoying time with Kathy, and just living happily. I thought about the two missed Christmases, the missed family birthdays, my brother's wedding I missed, and about the long separation from Kathy. Sitting on that airplane and trying to comprehend and sort through all the feelings of relief, joy, and happiness that I was on my way home and did not have to do or think about missionary work ever again was beyond words.
The flight attendant came and gave me my complimentary can of Coke. As I sipped the blessedly caffeinated drink, I amused myself with the thought that, below my feet, some poor Elder was looking up at my plane, wishing with all his heart to be where I sit, as he tracted, going endlessly from door to door to door, with each door being slammed in his face. I thought how I was mocking him by staring out the window so he could see that I was the one here and not him. I was the one soaring higher and higher and escaping the drudgery hell of a mission. I was the one flying away leaving only a contrail behind for him to see as he walked to the next door, only to be told yet again, to “get lost!” I thought how his wishes were in vain because today was my day to taste freedom’s sweetness.
My thoughts then drifted back to the last time a flight attendant, out of pity, offered me a soda two years ago when I was so depressed and sobbing bitterly leaving my home and leaving Kathy behind in California for that Salt Lake Mission home nightmare. Such a contrast, I thought.
THE WASHINGTON DC MINI-TOUR
In less than an hour, the plane landed at National Airport in Washington DC and I met up with the person I previously arranged to meet. My plane to California would leave Dulles International the next day, so, according to my previous arrangements; he provided me a mini-tour of the Washington DC mall area. He drove me around in his TR7 showing me the White House, the Washington memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and other mall monuments.
He was very gracious and kind to me and treated me to a McDonald’s dinner. We got along great and he told me that he knew how I felt being released from the ‘mission prison system' as he called it. He was also an RM and said he could see the relief all over my face. He told me he understood how I was feeling inside and related to me the day he came home from his hellhole mission. What he did not know was that privately, I was also reveling in my joy of knowing that I was successful in fooling the office elders' & MP in order to set up this itinerary to allow for this mini-tour while they thought I just wanted to go through the Washington DC temple. I got the last laugh on those clowns.
After the Washington DC Mall mini-tour, we got onto the DC beltway to go to his place for the night. When the Washington DC temple came into my view, I felt nothing inside seeing it. It had no significance to me as it was just another symbol of an ungrateful church. He asked if I wanted to see it up close but I politely said no. Puzzled by my reaction, he passed by the exit and I did not give the place a second glance. Soon we arrived at his place where he let me use of one of the spare bedrooms of his luxury apartment.
That night I had a nice long hot shower where I scrubbed off two years of missionary dirt and disgust. I soaped myself up several times just to let the water rinse away the disgust over and over again. I must have stayed in there for over an hour, but when I was done, I felt so cleansed from the missionary dirt & disgust that had symbolically built up. I even shampooed my hair 3 times. I did not know it at the time but I later learned that victims of rape do this sometimes.
As I prepared for bed, I realized that I no longer had to pretend to say a personal nightly prayer so as to not raise suspicion in a companion that I had lost my testimony. I also realized that I no longer had any rigid schedule of sleep & wake up times. In the morning, there would be no more mind-numbing tracting to go do in the morning. I felt so free.
In bed, I pondered over the day's experiences. What a day, I thought. I woke up in a hot & humid, cockroach infested dump for the last time, was driven away from Martinsville, brushed off the MP and his clueless wife, bodily threatened an Idaho-prick AP Elder for my plane tickets, transformed from Elder Flash to Flash, flew away from that hellhole Virginia Roanoke Mission, toured the Washington DC mall, and ended up in this nice place for the night.
His spare bedroom had a TV and a clock radio. That night was the first time in two years that I got to stay up late and watch “The Tonight Show” and then have a radio sing me to sleep. An air conditioner droned in the background keeping me cool all night as I slept. Gone forever was the nightly ritual of trying to find sleep in the silent & relentlessly hot and humid air of Virginia. “Life was good now” I thought, as I drifted off to sleep.
THE FLIGHT TO CALIFORNIA AND HOME
Early the next morning, I arose with great anticipation of being home at the end of the day. Again, there was no need for a phony morning personal prayer to attend to for a tattle-tale companion’s sake. And WHOOOOPEEEEEEEE!! No tracting to go do! No life sucking missionary duties of any kind to do! My only focus was getting home.
I dressed into "normal" clothes as I was not about to sit for 6+ hours dressed in a suite. I was driven to Dulles International to catch my flight to California. I thanked my friend and tour guide graciously at the drop off curb, checked in my bags, found my gate, and sat down to wait for the boarding call.
Again, it felt wonderful not wearing the telltale nametag or the clothes that screams Mormon Missionary. No suite, no vest, & no tie, just comfortable clothes. Nobody called me "Elder" or avoided sitting next to me. Nobody knew me and I saw no familiar faces. I was just another anonymous traveler. It felt soooooooooo good to just be alone and accountable to no one.
I bought a Dr. Pepper and a newspaper, found an empty seat, and just sat and read the daily news. How refreshing it was to just sit and read the paper and not spend another morning reading the same boring scriptures over and over and over again. Drinking my caffeine laced Dr. Pepper lifted my already sky high spirits even more.
The boarding call was announced and I made my way to the gate to board my plane to California. It was a large 4 engine jet TWA with relatively spacious economy class seating. Way better than the cramped Piedmont Airlines I took from Roanoke to Washington DC. I found my window seat and settled myself in for a nice long relaxing journey.
The plane was only 2/3 full so I had 2 empty seats next to me where I could stretch out my legs and sleep if I wanted to. I glanced over at the cabin door as the flight crew closed it and thought that when it opens again, I would be in California breathing the dry air of home and not this humid locker-room stuffy stale air of the east coast.
The plane pulled away from the gate and slowly taxied to the end of the runway. There it straightened out, and moments later its four engines came to life. Faster & faster did we roll down the runway and near the very end the plane slowly lifted off, folded its wheels, and began the 6 hour journey west to California. “What a wonderful way to start a day”, I thought.
I looked at the countryside passing underneath the plane for hours while music flooded my brain from the in-flight music selections from "The Bee Gees" to "Bread". The soft music had a way of flowing throughout my brain scrubbing away the two years of missionary muck that had gummed it up. I also watched two wonderful “evil” movies. How refreshing to watch a non-church movie. I was so fed up with church movies that if the airline had started playing “Mans Search for Happiness”, I know I would have gotten up and smashed the projector.
The food served on the flight tasted great because it was so much better than the crap I had been eating for so long as a missionary. I finished both meals completely plus 4 cans of various sodas plus whatever cookies I could persuade the flight attendant to steal for me.
Oh, how happy I was and how relieved knowing I would be home by the end of the day. I made it a point to reassure myself again that I was really there. I pushed on the side of the plane and grabbed the seat armrests and again they were substantial objects. I was not in a lucid dream that would end with my alarm clock waking me up in Martinsville to go out tracting again. I shuddered from a cold chill and almost puked at that horrible thought and I grabbed the armrests once more to make sure they were real.
As the flight continued on, the plane eventually flew over Utah. There I looked down at SLC and Provo and briefly thought about that "Bad Boy's Reform School” nightmare week in that Salt Lake Mission Home I endured two years previous. During my mission is when the church started up the MTC in Provo with the domestic missions Elders spending one month there. How lucky I was to avoid that! I could not imagine spending a month in that kind of a nightmare.
I amused myself with imagining that there were some Elders outside in an MTC courtyard looking up at the contrail my plane was leaving behind and wishing they could be where I was. But it was not to be today. Unless they had the courage to escape now, they had two hellhole years to go through wherever they would end up.
I also thought again of those poor Elders back in Virginia just starting out. How was their 2nd day in the Virginia Roanoke Mission Hell hole dealing with Frank’s shiz? What dark, unholy, and impure thoughts of “The Lord’s Anointed” pinhead mission president and his staff do they have now, I wondered? Better them than me.
For one last time, a wave of pity for them occupied my mind for about two seconds but those thoughts were washed away for good with a tsunami of happy thoughts of being home where I would be loved and wanted and with the girlfriend that I loved. Those poor new Elders and the hell of the Virginia Roanoke Mission felt so far away now and of no importance and the relentless roar of the jet engines seemed to magnify this feeling.
Later I looked out the window again and saw the Sierra Nevada Mountains where the California/Nevada state line is. The plane began to slow & descend. Oh God, is it really true? Am I really almost home? We descended more. I can hear the wheel bays opening. My home airport is in view now. I wondered how many people would be there to welcome me home. I hope Kathy was able to make it. We are closer to the ground now. CLOSER…CLOSER…THUMP…THUMP! I am on my home soil again! YAY!
FINALLY HOME AGAIN
When I walked out of the jet way, all my family were there to meet me. I cried seeing them and hugged them more than I ever had done before. It was the first time I ever cried because I was happy. I could not believe I was with them again. The two year nightmare was over.
Kathy was also there to meet me. To see her standing there after two long years brought another rush of tears to my eyes. Was this real? Is it really her? How much more beautiful she was in person. At twenty one now, she was a very pretty woman. I rushed over to her and we gave each other a very-very long hug and a deep kiss. I did not want to let go of her. I missed her so much. I kissed off (pun intended) that I was still a missionary until being released by the Stake President. I was threw being a missionary the moment I left that mission home and nothing was going to keep me from Kathy any longer.
The hugs and kisses I received from Kathy, after missing her for two miserable lonely years, poured peace into my soul in such a way that I cannot find adequate words to do justice in describing how I felt. Only those who have gone through this can understand what I am talking about. The English language is just too inadequate to paint a proper frame of reference for anyone who has not gone through the trauma of a Mormon mission and returned. For those of you who had the courage and emotional strength to not succumb to the social pressures of serving a mission, coming back home was not like coming back home from college or summer camp. It was like coming back from the dead.
No event in my life has ever produced such an intensity of happiness and relief as the day I came home from my mission. The joy in the relief of knowing I was forever done with it all overwhelmed me.
That night, at home, after my family retired, I sat on my bed and looked around my room marveling that I was there again. I began to cry so hard that I had to bury my face into a pillow so no one would hear me.
My tears were a mix of joy and anger. Tears of joy, because I was home where I was wanted and valued and where I could restart my life again and be with the girl I loved. Tears of anger, as I thought of the enormous time wasted, the undeserved pain received from the church leaders, the many days of not being able to be with Kathy, the lost opportunities in my education, and the time stolen from me from just living a normal happy life.
Before turning off the light, I checked just one last time that I was really there and not dreaming. Everything appeared real and solid. That night I slept for 14 hours and did not wake up until 1pm the next day. Happiness flooded my soul when I opened my eyes the next morning to find myself in my bed in my room at home. Yes! Yes! I was really home.
WHAT THIS MISSION EXPERIENCE DID TO ME
Allowing myself to be coerced in serving a mission turned out to be the most damning decision I have ever made. Serving this mission short-circuited my dreams and my education. I was 21 now and two years behind in college. I had lost two precious unrecoverable years of my youth being a salesman for Joe Smith.
I did not come home the "saturated sponge" dripping with the spiritual knowledge and wisdom beyond my years for a dedicated life to the Mormon Collective. Instead, I came home feeling like an old dried out used up chamois. I was fatally wounded spiritually and now the church was nothing more than a nuisance to me.
For those two years, I wilted in every area of my life.
I did not grow financially because I was not paid.
I did not grow socially because I was not allowed social interactions.
I did not grow academically because I just read the same four books over & over.
I did not grow spiritually because of the emotional rape from being lied to, humiliated, and condemned constantly for trivial imperfections and bad luck circumstances that were out of my control.
The Lord never answered my prayers in any way. He never even provided a simple warm feeling to confirm that what I was doing was true or worthwhile in order to salvage my daily dying faith. The mission home even stole my $50 deposit claiming it for a phantom unpaid bill. The missionary experience left me extremely bitter and convinced that the Mormon Church is the only church on Earth that persecutes its own missionaries.
NO MORE GHOSTS IN VIRGINIA
For those of you living in Virginia who may think that I am trashing your home, I am not. Virginia is a very pretty place and, as they say, “Virginia is for Lovers”. I did go back to Virginia 15 years after my mission as part of a cross-country vacation with my wife.
What a wonderful feeling it was to be there as an exmo being able to do the things I wanted to do that I could never do as a missionary because of having no time or money or freedom. When I went back, it was in the fall when all the leaves were turning color and my pretty Asian wife was in awe. For the first time, I was able to enjoy the beauty of autumn in Virginia.
Visiting one of the areas I was assigned as a missionary, it felt strange to be there again. For a few moments, I felt those familiar missionary depression and hopelessness feelings start to well up inside me of having to go tracting all day. It surprised me that those feelings could still rise up after so many years.
But when my wife put her arms around me, those depressing feelings were quickly crushed and swept away as reality came rushing back and I knew that I did not have to go and start knocking on the doors of the surrounding houses to try and sell Joe Smith and his silly church. I could leave at any time. I could eat at any time. I was not confined to a certain area. I had no weekly reports to fill out and I did not need the permission of some pinhead Zone Leader or Mission President to leave.
As my wife and I drove away to our next destination, I knew I was forever free from the toxic religion of Mormonism. It was so very satisfying being in those places as an exmo because I never felt more free of the Mormon Church, than being in a place where it had chained me so tightly.
My fellow Exmos, adieu.
Flash