either that, or die as a martyr. both things he told me.

the kid i liked least on my mission. i hated him, in fact, and told him that once. i lived in two apartments with him for a total of seven months of my mission.

this kid was nuts.

as evidence, he was sure he was meant to be an apostle because, in his dad's patriarichal blessing, it said he would "share the table with apostles." which he (the father) took to mean his children, i.e., this nut I served with. that's why he had the name of three apostles (which i won't share here) in his full name. so he comes from a line of crazies, obviously.

so it was continually frustrating to him that other elders got promoted faster than he. i remember close to the end of his mission he made a long, loud, bawling phone call to the president about how his mission had been a failure. he wasn't even a zone leader. it was such a nutso phone call i had the instinct to hide the knives in the kitchen.

and he didn't die on his mission, sorry for him.

just thought i'd share one of the many delusionals i encountered during my time serving abroad.

ok
for those men that were *True* TBM's

didn't you daydream/hope/pray that you would be *faithful* enough to be an apostle one day?

I know I did.... the only difference is that I don't think I ever voiced that hope to anyone.

I day dreamed about being called as an apostle. It would have proven to me that the church was true. It would have shown that god inspires the leaders to pick people who were trying hard instead of leaders who just picked their friends to help them lead.

Oh well.

PS I also never voiced it because the people who talked about becoming apostles were always the biggest douches.

my patriarchal blessing said i was going to be a common judge in israel. so i just expected to be a bishop...

i couldnt stand other missionaries who were totally trying to become AP as most APs were total dicks. i think i liked 1 on my mission. and i liked some other guys who became AP, and then i stopped liking them. they magically turned into dicks.

yeah, that's a good point. i guess i did sometimes daydream my name would be called out of conference for some special calling. but i certainly didn't dwell on it, or make it known to anyone. just a fleeting, boyish dream.

My missionpresident thought he would be an apostle soon. And of course we who served under him also were very chosen. Thats why there were so few sister missionaries in our big mission -

I didn't realize people aspired to church leadership positions until my mission. This may have stemmed from growing up in a ward of mostly dysfunctional people who probably knew they weren't likely candidates for any sort of leadership positions.

I believed that the Lord prepared each of us for specific callings that would do us the most good, and allow each of us to do the most good, so I wasn't too concerned with reaching any particular rank.

Then, the mission . . . it was painfully obvious that those who campaigned to be zone leaders or AP's or to serve in particular areas were magically called to these positions and places. I never asked for a promotion or special placement, and despite being a hard worker, I was only made a district leader in the last area of my mission.

When I was told that my mission president had ambitions to be a GA, I didn't want to believe that he thought the church worked like that, aspiration as opposed to inspiration - but this is precisely how he ran the mission.

I think he actually would have been a great GA, since he was very intelligent, gentle, and generous. Unfortunately, the mission he presided over didn't generate the sort of numbers that impress.

oops, at least Mitchell made it to the high council...

As he described all the symptoms it was hard for me to bite my tongue, since his brother sounded just like JS.

i had a missionary in my group at the mtc who talked like he was trying to talk like joseph smith and it bugged the hell out of me! but he was buff, he had me sit on his back while he did pushups! so he was still kind of cool.....when he wasnt speaking =)

You hated him and once told him so? That is funny. How did you tell him? It just strikes me as funny. I just don't ever recall telling someone that I hate them.

it's not something i'm particularly proud of because i lost my temper. we were trying to give away book of mormons in the middle of the street, and he's lecturing me on some such thing. i was tuning him out, which upset him even more, and so he started trying to insult me personally.

the whole spectacle of it got to me and i erupted. "i f***ing hate you," i said, and threw a book of mormon at him. and walked away, ashamed, angry and kind of smirking at the absurdity of it all.

After you told him you hate him, I bet he strutted off all smug thinking he'd make sure you cleaned the dog poo off church property when he's an apostle!

...(no doubt the MP supplied the name) and declare he was foreordained from the beginnings of time blah blah blah to rise high in the church blah blah blah... Rather than humbling the missionary or making the rest of us look up to him as an example of great righteousness, it would make the guy a bigger jerk and the rest of us would hate him more.

nomo--you've never told someone you hated them? Oh, believe me, I have--many times. I guess I'm just a mean bitch.

Anyway--I realized to an extent that people aspired to being leaders in the LDS church, but I didn't realize to what extent until I came to this board.

Being female, I did want an RM to marry--but only because it was a righteous thing to do (waited for a missionary and learned how stupid this was). I NEVER wanted to be married to a bishop or anything higher. I preferred my husband didn't have a calling at all. My dad hated having callings.

I never even considered the possibility that anyone even remotely close to me would be any kind of church leader and that was mostly because I never saw it as anything to aspire to. AND I was very TBM.

1. My patriarchal blessings had the line "you will have great power and authortiy over others" which I thought meant I would at least be a bishop.

2. The line is oh so thin between APOSTLE and APOSTATE. Most of us on this board made it! It was just a typo!

3. Once had a companion use the priesthood to damn someone to hell at the door. I think he thought he was an apostle or prophet.

4. The original poster's companion probably did become an apostle .... at some compound in Utah with his own harem.

5. and one last one ... had a friend at church say once that he would turn down a calling to be a counselor in the EQ. You see, he had been EQ president in the past and that would be perceived as a demotion. Oh, yeah ... his dad was the Bishop. The church is twoooo.

If he's truly an asshole, he can make it yet.

Well I had no aspirations whatsoever. When I went on a mission that was enough to cure me. White shirt, dry meetings, stupid jokes, no caffeine...I couldn't imagine a more uncomfortable existence than to be a G.A. I was cured.

I can tell you why he never made it very far-- vanity, lol.

Nobody likes it. Seriously, going around telling people you're going to be an apostle??? Talk about being totally full of yourself!

In my opinion, the only people who should be promoted to positions of religious authority, are the hard-working and extremely HUMBLE people.

Placebo-- Haha, I would pay BIG money to see that between to missionaries :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2010 09:34PM by melissa3839.

Some of the missionaries in my mission did become apostles ... in the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times.

If you want to see a ton of guys trying to posture as future leaders, (Bishops, Stake Presidents, Area Presidency members, and future apostles), you should see the CES guys strut their stuff at the big gatherings.

It's pretty funny. They sing louder, they bear their testimonies every time they get a chance to get up behind the microphone, and the preach to the rest of the dumb sheep sitting there. Their strutting and posturing is always done with a thin veneer of practiced, rehearsed, humility but reaking with self promotion.

I could like a hundred of their little tricks to impress others but it would make me wretch and vomit. Talk about a cult!

Glad I'm a lowly apostate. I'll drink to that :)