Son and a mission?

One more thought that just hit me:

I would ask someone in an official leadership position about possible alternatives to a traditional mission, just in case his condition doesn’t allow him to serve that sort of mission later in his life. I would try to pick someone whom you feel is not a hard-liner and who would not dismiss your concerns as a lack of faith, but getting it out there early will help – even if only for your son.

It’s one thing for a young man or young woman to know he or she might not be able to serve a traditional mission but he or she still can serve a mission in some way and, therefore, actively be preparing to serve as a legitimate, realistic goal; it’s quite another to be blind-sided late in the process by not being able to accomplish the only option discussed for his or her entire life to that point; it’s still another not to prepare at all due to a focus on just the unrealistic option.

One more thought that just hit me:

I would ask someone in an official leadership position about possible alternatives to a traditional mission, just in case his condition doesn’t allow him to serve that sort of mission later in his life. I would try to pick someone whom you feel is not a hard-liner and who would not dismiss your concerns as a lack of faith, but getting it out there early will help – even if only for your son.

It’s one thing for a young man or young woman to know he or she might not be able to serve a traditional mission but he or she still can serve a mission in some way and, therefore, actively be preparing to serve as a legitimate, realistic goal; it’s quite another to be blind-sided late in the process by not being able to accomplish the only option discussed for his or her entire life to that point; it’s still another not to prepare at all due to a focus on just the unrealistic option.

Good point. Personally, with my own feelings lately, the idea of preparing him for some kind of a service mission alternative is just as attractive as a proselyting mission in case that doesn’t happen. And I don’t care about the status or cultural honor associated with a proselyting mission — not one bit. And see your point about “the only option” approach. My wife was prepared to be a mother in her TBM upgrining, and when she couldn’t have children for the first few years of our marriage, it was REALLY hard. We now prepare out daughter for more than motherhood, without mentioning my wife’s problem (ever). But help her see that life can take different paths, and we need to visualize our lives under various different scenarios.

How did your sons fund their missions and college, speaking generally?? I am a convert so this is all new ground for myself.

This is a good conversation Ray, I appreciate it.

Our former ward members paid for his mission, even though we no longer lived in that ward, and I will be eternally grateful for that.

We plan on paying for our second son’s mission on our own. It will be hard, since I started all over again in a new career path and have not been able to save much since my previous unemployment, but I think we will be able to do it. We managed to pay our oldest son’s student loan payments while he served, and they were about what a mission costs each month. Our second son’s loans are minimal (my full-tuition benefit is wonderful, even if my salary is low), so that won’t be nearly as big an issue.

Thanks for the detail…I’m actually a bit amazed at some of the implications here. My first faith crisis happened when my Stake President told me to stay home and first pay off all my student loans (after 3 years of university), which were substantial, since I went to school on primarily loans. Then he said I also had to pay for the entire mission myself. I was 20 when I joined the Church and maybe 6 months older than that when I talked about going, and finished my 3 year degree a couple months later.

I found another Ward to support me, but he was mad about that, since they were out of the Stake. The Bishopric there had agreed to support me entirely, although they were two hours away. New to the Church, never having lived away from home, I wanted to stay in my Stake until I left, but he was pretty stern and well…nasty in his answer. “No one has the right to run around the province asking for money” were his exact words.

I also asked if I could have payments in the bank before I left to cover the student loan payments, and he said “no”, I had to pay it all off before I left. I had a psychology degree and found all i could do at the time was deliver pizza since I had no skills of any real value, other than some naive smarts. It took me two and a half more years after I graduated from school to get the money together, but only after some members let me live in their unfinished, unheated, uncooled attic in Canada for free, and another member helped me find a better job. The first year, I actually went into debt for basic living expenses, that my father paid to keep me afloat. The rest of the time I worked three jobs. It was one of the hardest periods in my life, particularly since my non-member parents would not let me live at home since they had been influenced by anti-Mormon literature, and my mental orientation is toward thinking, not the kind of work I had to do at the time given my weak undergraduate degree program.

Not to digress into this, but I can’t help but feel we had the hardest-nosed Stake President I can imagine. Here your son left on your Ward’s budget, although he was not living there (perhaps a bit different since you were in the Ward for years upon years, while I was a newcomer to the distant ward, and there on a referral from a long-time member). And then, he left with loan payments in the bank rather than having the loan fully paid off. My Stake president made me produce a document from the bank indicating the loans had been paid off before they would let me go through the mission interviewing process.

It was after that initial response that I started divorcing the formal Church organization from God — something that others don’t understand logically — but that was my quasi-Stage 5 thinking or coping mechanism.

But in the absence of any spiritual encouragement from the formal leadership, the SP’s harsh demeanor, and lack of commitment to the “every worthy young man should serve a mission” directive at that time, or the miracles told in the BoM associated with righteous desires, I couldn’t see how the Church could be an extension of a divine power while holding such a harsh, and totally temporal attitude. Thsi was exacerbated when my Bishop told me just to stay home and marry my girlfriend….It was as if we didn’t believe what we taught. Although I reconciled this at the time (through the divorcement I mentioned above), it laid the foundation for a sleeping giant which resurrected when later, similar situations emerged in my life.

Anyway, I didn’t ask these questions to bait you into a discussion on this old, partially lingering faith crisis…but I wanted to share. We don’t even have to discuss the SP’s perspective. A defence of it probably wouldn’t do much at this point, and may well be a bit disturbing for me as I’ve tried to justify it a number of times. His demeanor and lack of spirituality about the problem is the part that gets me the most, although the harsh conditions he imposed on me to go on the mission are also a substantial factor.

I appreciate the practical advice you gave though. This is great stuff looking forward as I figure out what to do with my smart boy.

[Incidentally, when I was a youngling about to leave on mission, I asked my Bishop about health care, and he said he didn’t know. I left for America without any health care as a Canadian citizen — what a risk. When I got to the MTC I asked that question, and they said the Church would cover me if there was an emergency, although the answer came from the person at the front desk at the MTC. One LDS doctor treated me for free when I had a really terrible virus. I don’t know what the policy is now, but I suspect it will be on us to maintain whatever health coverage is necessary for my son and his diabetic supplies].

I know why he did it…because he told me flat out– and it had nothing to do with me personally. And I don’t agree, but guess what. One of the benefits of this site is that is that with this last post, I’m officially tired and spiritually fatigued from reflecting on that story.

Anyway, I’m off to teach the RS how to budget their money this evening — another way I don’t mind serving as its immensely practical.

I don’t know if this is “official policy” but it seems that, with respect to missions, the Church is no longer as tolerant as it used to be of two things: disobedient missionaries and missionaries with significant health problems. On my mission, I served as secretary to the president which meant I was privy (for a time) to all the different problems that missionaries had. It amazed me to realize that there were more missionaries WITH problems than without (problems ranging from health issues to inappropriate relationships with members). Very few missionaries were ever sent home. The mission president worked hard to keep them out in the field regardless of the issue (there were, of course, exceptions). That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I would not dissuade any young man or woman from pursuing the possibility of a mission if that’s what they want but just be aware that severe health issues can get a missionary sent home early. And there is a DEFINITE stigma associated with “coming home early from a mission” REGARDLESS of the reason.