Ned (#36): You would have despised me in the MTC for my earnestness, and I would have written you off for your attitude, but if we could have overcome our mutual pride and prejudices I really think we could have made a cozy little MTC writing group for missionaries struggling to overcome a precious style. I was lucky that my 24th day was fairly low key, but when I got worked up things got pretty dramatic in my journal. Witness, for example, “This morning I sat in class, legs crossed, my head cocked toward the teacher but my eyes on the window. Windows. The bits of negative space in our world of outlines and surfaces. Transparency that gives way to more transparency–air–and more beyond that–sky. They were moving, rapidly changing color and position like wave on the ovean, almost, except these waves never rolled back down the sand. I kept my eyes on the window until my perspective shifted, my frame of reference reversed: now it seemed that the clouds were still, stable, stationary, while the classroom and all the little lives in it pitched and rolled in the wind. Meanwhile the teacher’s voice droned on.” Oh my. I think Sister Frandsen and Elder Flanders actually would have enjoyed sharing some Cap’n Crunch across the table at the MTC.

Shelby (#37): You have the distinction of crafting my favorite sentence in this whole thread: “but after being very humbled I prayed for forgiveness and covenanted with the Lord to obey all the MTC rules and SYL.” There is something sublime about a missionary covenanting to obey SYL; I love it, actually, and I think it’s genuinely inspiring in its earnest banality.

Naomi (#42): Naomi, what a tragedy! I hope you find your journal. And I’m also glad I didn’t send you excepts, then, since you were a much better missionary as Sora Frandsen than you would have been as Irma Frandsen. I’m still trying to figure out whether we would have made good companions, though.

Roughrider (#55): There’s nothing like the TRC to get a missionary good and stoked, is there? I usually came out feeling partly exhilarated and partly sick to my stomach, since it was almost always a bad experience for my companion, and I knew that an icy evening was to follow.

Genealogy library (#56): You should know that in a lot of ways the 24th day of my mission was an exception to the rule, and I mentioned that I was happy, hopeful, et al, because so often I wasn’t. Although my experience in the MTC wasn’t as dire as yours sounds, it was still by far the most difficult part of a mission that included some pretty rough water. Like you, I responded very poorly to many of the training techniques and to much of the general atmosphere, and I spend many hours chafing against how things were (and then repenting for that chafing). Things got a lot better for me once I was out of the MTC, and I hope they did for you, too. I’ve made an effort to tell my younger siblings that the MTC isn’t a wholly positive experience for everyone, and that if they are having difficulty, they should write to me because I’ll definitely understand. If it weren’t so depressing, I’d post some of the difficult days, too.

SeptimusH: Hey, I think Hermana Cutler was in my district! When were you in the MTC?

Hey “From the genealogy library”. Yah, the MTC experience is definitely not all it was made out to be. I always look at it like Boot Camp for missionaries. They couldn’t have made it worse, even if they had locked in unair-conditioned dorm rooms and blasted Christina Aguilera 24/7! I can’t blame the church leaders too much, because most of the feelings come from the other missionaries, who were probably feeling the same as me about the whole thing!

8/4/93

I like that you can get chocolate milk here. At breakfast some Elder said they put some chemical in the orange juice to curb your sex drive or something. I wonder if that’s true. Wouldn’t surprise me. But they should probably put more in if it is. I kinda like Hermana Cutler and she’s not even that good looking. Hah. She hates me because I keep guessing what her first name is. She’s pretty spiritual.

In class today we did a charla and Elder Morgan kept saying “Como se siento? Como se siento? Como se siento?” like twice every principle. That’s not even right. Now it’s stuck in my head. I’m going to get to Uruguay and ask myself how I feel about the gospel all day.

I’m trying to be positive I really am. I keep praying that if I can just make it out of here things will get better. It’s so crowded here it almost makes it hard to breathe. I just keep reading and reading and reading the Book of Mormon. It calms me down. It’s great to feel peace like that and know it’s the spirit.

I just wish Elder Pratt would stop trying on my shoes in the middle of the night.

One thing that struck me about Rosalynde’s diary entry is how much she sounded like the missionaries in my district in the MTC (aside from the references to being a sister missionary, of course). I was a few years older then the other missionaries in my district, and (as with most things in my life) I didn’t take many things about the MTC very seriously. Unfortunately (and as with most things in my life), the things that I did take seriously were all the wrong things, and I found most other missionaries insufferable because of their emotionalism, their enthusiasm, their I-wish-I-could-hug-the-world mentality. Viewed as a place of learning, the MTC was quite easy. I did not feel the spirit, but I was told I gave a powerful testimony (it’s probable that everyone was). But the MTC was altogether and by far the most miserable and profoundly negative experience of my life. From beginning to end, the routine, the approach, the spoon feeding, the lessons, the teachers, the repitition, the meetings–everything about it–all of it made me feel manipulated and beat up and kicked around and (in the end) humiliated. I kept all of this hidden, because we’re not supposed to feel this way about the MTC. For years I felt an immense amount of hostility toward the church because of these feelings. I guess it takes all types.

Here is my entry for what its worth:

Sunday, December 03, 1995

The next thing [that happened is] that we finally got to teach the entire first palestra to some other missionaries. It was a great experience to work as a companionship. Normally we just teach one on one to each other. When teaching with each other, you realize that you’re on the same team, it’s not just me and him or them and us, we’re all together on this. I really love this work and know it is the most important thing I’ve ever done.

I stopped writing in my missionary journal for the same reason you stopped writing your “married” journal–I did not want to remember my time with one of my companions. Unfortunately, I never really got back into the habit, and there are many things I missed and cannot really recapture. At least my mother saved all my letters home, so I still have that.

My mission journals are full of self-doubt and anxiety that I wasn’t doing enough. It was a perpetually harrowing struggle to know that I was forever falling short of the consecration I covenanted to give. It taught me many valuable lessons for being happy in life and knowing how to deal with others, though. Most importantly, though, it taught me the Atonement.

I think Hanna Tycc’s questions are interesting. I am reminded of a quote I heard (which may be apocryphal, though my Dad is certain he’s seen it in print) stating that when the adversary is released again following the Millennium, our posterity will use our journals to know how to deal with an adversary they’ve never deal with before. Probably a faith-promoting rumor, but it is interesting to think about.