Come home early or not go at all?

[Anonymous]

For a variety of reasons I couldn’t have gone on a mission. But better that than returning, people gossip.

[Anonymous]

The one good thing about coming home early is you can tell people your mission was the “best eleven months of my life” and enjoy their surprised looks.

As for girls who won’t date anyone but an RM, I have zero respect for any woman who requires this for her to consider someone “worthy” of her if she hasn’t herself served a mission. And most of those I know who have served would not be this judgmental.

[Anonymous]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

The one good thing about coming home early is you can tell people your mission was the “best eleven months of my life” and enjoy their surprised looks.

lol

hawkgrrrl wrote:

As for girls who won’t date anyone but an RM, I have zero respect for any woman who requires this for her to consider someone “worthy” of her if she hasn’t herself served a mission. And most of those I know who have served would not be this judgmental.

Well, sure, for US that makes perfect sense, because we don’t necessarily buy in to the church’s programs, and we see the value in independent thought and not marching in step with the church in everything. But for people fully committed to the church and its lifestyle, I think it’s unfair to project our view onto them. Obviously a girl should not have a checkbox about completing a full 24-month mission or she won’t talk to a guy or go an ‘a date’ with a guy. That would be terribly judgmental. However, when we are talking seriously dating, engaging, marrying, building a family, I can tell you unequivocally that I would not want my kids to marry someone who has no interest in college. Judgmental. Hell ya. And yet… there it is. There are perfectly good and wonderful people that I know, many that are very dear to me, that have never been to college. There is no dishonor with not going to college. There is no shame in starting college and then realizing it is not for you. There are many successful people who never went to college. There are even more people that have been to college, but suck at life, anyway. In other words, college is not a checkbox for the worth of souls. In my family culture, though, education is important. I doubt that any of my kids would be (emotionally) attracted to someone not bought into the same mindset.

To bring this to a very personal level. I have long accepted the fact that my faith crisis has left me very different from the man my wife married. I do not have the same outlook on life as that YM. I don’t have the same priorities. I know fully well, that my wife and I would not have married if the old me was like the new me. My wife and I love each other and can’t imagine a life without each other. I feel like I’m the luckiest man alive, to have her. But the reality is that in those formative times, when we barely knew each other, it worked for us because we were using the same emotional and spiritual currency.

Put another way, if a YM wants to marry the girl who is the Student Body President, star volleyball player, and Prom Queen, he probably shouldn’t join the Chess Club.

[Anonymous]

“Spiritual currency.” Yep. That is how I looked at it at 19…and it is more accurate today than I would like to admit.

I went on a mission and finished a mission partially because I knew it would make me more attractive to the opposite sex. And not finishing would be a huge black mark in the dating pool. Spiritual currency.

Shame.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[Anonymous]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

As for girls who won’t date anyone but an RM, I have zero respect for any woman who requires this for her to consider someone “worthy” of her if she hasn’t herself served a mission. And most of those I know who have served would not be this judgmental.

Yes, it’s the church’s equivalent of chickenhawks.

[Anonymous]

Girls/women not wanting a guy that was sent home from a mission or did not go is very real unfortunately. As are the many RM’s that would never date or break up with a girl if she was not a virgin. So yes it is sad we set these markers as a church and then claim that we believe in the atonement.

[Author]

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