Missionary letter made my daughter cry

Regulargal Nov. 2013

My 20 year old daughter received a letter in the mail last week from an old friend who is currently serving a mission. [My daughter came to me in tears as she felt the letter diminished their friendship and had it reduced her to just being a project.]

My daughter and this other girls were pretty good church friends when we were all still going. We all left about three years ago and she has barely heard from this girl since then.

Last week she got the letter and was very excited to read it and hear what was going on in her long lost friend's life.

She was bitterly disappointed when she read the letter, only to find out that she was doing so in response to a challenge her mission president had give them, to pray about someone to write with whom they could share their testimony.

My daughter came to me in tears as she felt the letter diminished their friendship and had it reduced her to just being a project. She felt judged and unappreciated for the truly wonderful person she is.

This missionary friend, also mentioned in the letter how my daughter was one of the most Christlike people she had ever known. But change....... Come back to church. It's not too late!

I spent about a 1/2 hour talking to my daughter and consoling her. I tried to explain to her how this "friend" has been influenced and is probably thinking she is doing a great thing by reaching out "finally". Even though there was no interest in the letter as to how my DD is doing. Just, the need to come back to church.

I just wrote a rather lengthy email to mission president expressing how opposite a reaction this little project of his has had. I asked him to please stop advising his missionaries to contact people like this. It is transparent and silly. People know when they are just a project and not a friend.

I told the mission president that now my DD [dear daughter] does not even want to spend much time with the few LDS friends she still keeps in contact with because she feels they are probably judging her as well, and maybe she is just a project to them also.

I am wondering if I will ever hear back from him. It was sad awakening I'm afraid for my daughter.


notmonotloggedin
That is pathetic...reminds me of TBM SIL who
hadn't spoken with us in ages and ages [years]...not for lack of trying on our part. One day she called out of the blue and I was so happy to hear from her it made me cry. Turned out she wanted me to be her East Coast connection for selling Mary Kay.

Taught me a life lesson.


jpt
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
And 30 years ago....

Probably being a bit of a mormon rebel, I had a lot of nomo friends and acquaintances (work related) before my mission. In the mission home in SLC, they told us all to write to any nomo friends we had and bear our testimonies and preach the gospel. Dumb, young, and naive, I did just that. I did NOT hear back from any of them. I later figured they all thought I'd become some type of wacko.

And it's probably what the church wanted and intended anyway so I'd be more focused on "the work."

Still the same.


FredOi
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
Just a sanctimonious reach out letter.
Gee, I wish I only did that on my mission.
Tell your daughter to keep the letter. Maybe one day that girl will come apologize.
Look past the naievety, consider the good will and intent, even though it was patronizing and typical.
If that's the worst her post mo experience is to her, let her know she got out lightly.

She can post here if she wants to hear traumatic stories


64monkey
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
It's hard to find a true friend. I'm 50 years old and can count on less then one hand how many true friends I have had.

The type of person who would never judge me, and would give me his/her last dollar, shirt of their back and even give their life for me.

A rare thing indeed a true friend.

P.S. Not one of them was LDS or even religious.


cludgie
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
I sat with a guy on high council overseas. He was a nice guy with a non-American wife. We weren't too close, but decent enough friends. Eventually, he rotated back to the states. I didn't hear from him in a very long time. He called me out of the blue years later. I said, "Hi, Don! How are you?!" Then he just said, "Cludgie! I have a money-making program I want to tell you about!" I said something like, "Uh, Don, I wouldn't be interested much in that. But tell me how you are. How's your family?" And he just hung up. I never heard from him again. Mormons have since done this to me two more times.
newnamenephi
Re: That is pathetic...reminds me of TBM SIL who
Lol...been there before! Freaking MLM schemes.

Regulargal
Re: That is pathetic...reminds me of TBM SIL who
Yes, for my husband and I it was an Amway pitch. Old roomie from college and her husband are in town and DYING to see us! Oiy!


nomorefencesitting
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
"I tried to explain to her how this "friend" has been influenced and is probably thinking she is doing a great thing by reaching out "finally"."

Those are great words of advise for your daughter and are very much true.

When I was still in college, my best friend decided that she needed to go on a mission. Just like your daughter's friend, she sent me a letter saying that I needed to come back to church blah blah blah. Enclosed was a BoM with her testimony written in it. I was so mad at her that I immediately wrote back and told her that maybe we should stop being friends if I was just going to be another project. She wrote back to me in a heartfelt letter admitting to me that she had told some people on her mission about me and her MP and the other missionaries coerced her into doing it. She begged for my forgiveness and we patched things up. It's something that she still truly regrets because she's apologized many times to me for it.

One of these days I'll have to share both the BoM testimony (when I can find it--I think I gave it to my mom because I couldn't make myself throwing away a BoM) and the letter asking me for her forgiveness.


nateland
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
I was never a TBM but grew up all around them. As I moved past high school and onto college. I have noticed that all my friends from high school have looked at more and more like a project to convert vs. a person with my own set of beliefs. I only have two RM friends left who have chosen to not continually ask me to go to church with them and to pray over the BoM. It is frustating at times but I think it shows who your true friends whether they are in the church or not.


Hermes
I wrote a letter like that
The mission president put the hoodoo on all of us one Zone meeting, and we were supposed to reach out to our "lost sheep" friends.

So in my next letter to him I wrote "the Church is true" at the end.

He wrote back and asked that I write about the things I was doing, the places I was visiting and all the rest, but would I kindly leave that "Church is true @#$%&" out of his letters.

I apologized in the next one, and realized how truly brainwashed I was becoming. I appreciated his honesty and true friendship.

He and I are still best friends 30 years later.


xnorth
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
I would tell your daughter that if it would help her feel better, to write a letter back to the missionary explaining how demeaning and UN-christlike the letter was, and that it not only made her feel like a project, it made her lose respect for her "friend". Maybe the girl will think twice next time. Unlikely, but you never know.


wolfsbane
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
Yep. I did this on my mission as well. I had no idea how hurtful I was being. I thought I was being a good missionary and the spirit would testify of the truth. I hate what the cult does to people and the way they think.

moira
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
A little bit different situation but I went to a class reunion and visited with an old boyfriend who dumped me over 20 years before because I was falling away from Mormonism and he was getting ready to go on a mission. He asked me if I considered myself a Mormon still and I said that I did not. A few days later he called to say goodbye (as I lived overseas) and said, "How am I going to get you back to church?" He pissed me off so badly that when I got home I got on the computer and started searching and found RfM (1997). I ended up resigning. Now, when I see him, he asks me if I, at least, believe in God. He just won't quit.


FredOi
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
Very true.
Like I said, if I_only_did something like that.
I'm pretty embarrassed at some of the letters I wrote.
But I was 19 or 20.
A child
And stupid
Well meaning, thankfully others were pretty charitable about it.
Regulargal
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
I'm very curious to see if the mission president responds to my email in any manner. Probably not I'm guessing. I didn't give my real name and expressed to the MP that I was not doing so because I didn't want this young sister missionary to be identified and approached about the letter. It was not a letter that I believe she would have written if she had trusted her own feelings rather than obey her MP's directions. I did leave my real email address.
ladyfarrier
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
Have her send something like this,

Dear I thought you were my friend,

I am really touched that after all this time (and the challenge from your mp) you just had to bear your testimony to me. I feel I should bear my testimony to you. I want you to know I truly believed in the church, so much so that I wanted to learn as much as I could (after all it is the lards gospel). When I studied all I could find about Joe Smith and found out about him marrying 14 year old girls and women already married to other men I was shocked.

Then when I learned that the church actually has the original papyrus that the book of abraham was translated from and the carbon dating is completely wrong and the actual translation is just a common funerary text I was blown away. (She could talk about the multiple first vision stories or whatever else works.)

Then something about how much she cares about "friend" and is so glad for the opportunity to share her own testimony.
Love,
Xxx

It is pretty sarcastic but it would make a point.


pioneerrose
Re: Missionary letter made my daughter cry
For added oomph...I would add "just like Warren Jeffs" to the
sentence:

"When I studied all I could find about Joe Smith and found out about him marrying 14 year old girls and women already married to other men I was shocked."

Reminding folks that they did the same thing never hurts.


saviorself
Suggestion for your daughter
Send this letter to your missionary "friend".

Hello,

When your mission president told you to try to re-activate a friend I am flattered that the first person you thought about was little ol' me! Imagine how happy I was to read your letter, telling me that I have messed up my life by leaving "The Church". Surely the answer to all my problems will be to re-join The Church.

Sorry to have to tell you this, but that is not going to happen in this lifetime.

Have you ever read the Articles of Faith, as written by your beloved prophet Joseph Smith?

Please go read the 11th Article of Faith. Is there any part of it that you don't understand? If yes, then write me another letter and then I will explain it to you.

Signed,
Your former friend.

"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"