It has been quite a while since I have talked about my time as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or even my time in the Church, but this week I decided to talk about some of the recent thoughts I had about my mission. If you would like to read or listen to my other episodes on my mission you can find them by following the links: Army of God: My 2 Year LDS Mission, The “Best” 2 Years of My Life: My LDS Mission, and Homecoming.

“Never answer the question they ask; answer the question they should have asked.” That is the advice my mission president gave when I asked him how to respond when people ask questions about the Church where the answer does not make the Church look all that favorable. In a lot of ways my mission president was like a politician, though he never was, but he was a business man his entire life before going into full-time service for the Church and he had learned to both protect the company and the bottom line, and in this case, the company was the Church. I often did not agree with my mission president, but I was always respectful toward him, and he had years of wisdom under his belt and I learned a great deal from him. One of the wise things my mission president said that is not particularly relevant to today’s topic, or to missionary work for that matter, is, “When you are in an argument with your wife, regardless of who you feel is at fault for it, always be the first to apologize, and if she is the person you think you married, she will apologize as well. Never let pride get in the way of your happiness or your relationship.”

Anyhow, back to my mission president’s statement about answering the question that should have been asked, looking back I realize that I took that advice a lot during my mission and I would lead the conversation away from topics that could be damaging to the Church and sometimes intentionally mislead people about the Church’s doctrine and history so they would join, which I always felt bad about, but my mission president said that they would forgive me for misleading them when they finally realized that I had because by then they would have realized that the Church is God’s true church and would be happy to be a member of it, by whatever means. I know know that I mislead people and led them into a cult that offers the false promise of becoming a god someday instead of what the Bible offers, which is salvation.

I have mentioned this before, but I did not enjoy my mission, not even from the start and I mostly went on my mission because I felt it was my obligation, and because I thought it would help me make up for my shortcomings as a person and, perhaps, help to earn my salvation. At the time I had also drank deeply of the Kool-Aid and believed the Church to be God’s kingdom on earth and the only way to salvation. Man was I wrong!

I had a difficult time raising money for my mission and the guy I was working for at the time, despite being an active member of the Church, cheated me out of a lot of money and further hindered me from securing the funds for my mission. If you are not familiar with the workings of the LDS Church you may not know that all missionaries are expected to pay their own way on their mission, despite how insanely rich the Church is, even if the person going on a mission is from an extremely impoverished family. The Church has donation drives for people who want to serve a mission but can’t afford it, but other members, often in dire straights themselves, pay for the missions and not the Church.

The day I was to leave on my mission I had to testify in court against my father as his nefarious life finally caught up to him. My father always hated the Mormon Church, and though I always hate to admit it, was one of the major factors in my joining the Church in the first place. I reported to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah some fourteen hours late because of my obligations to the legal system, and I was only days into the training when my stake president called to inform me that my father had been sentenced. I did not know it then, but despite the fact that my father had only been sentenced to 10 years he would serve a life- sentence as he would die of a heart attack less than five years into his sentence. Not only was my father a horrible human being, he was also a grade a whack-a-mole and was convinced that he was immortal and would never die, but he was obviously wrong about that. My father also thought he was so high in importance that he was next in importance to Jesus Christ, which interestingly was also one of the claims Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, made about himself. I have often wondered if my father hated the Mormon Church so much because Joseph Smith was so much like himself, in many horrible ways.

Within days of entering the MTC I knew that my mission would not be easy and that I would be doing at least as much babysitting as I would be preaching. Before going on my mission I had the mistaken impression that all missionaries went on missions because of their undying devotion to the Church and because they were so on fire for the gospel, but alas, I quickly learned that the vast majority of them were just kids who were only serving a mission because it was expected of them and/or because of what they thought they would get out of it, but I guess I was not so different; While it is true that I bought the Church’s claims, hook line and sinker, and I was excited to share it with everyone I happened across, I ultimately served a mission because it was expected of me, and because of what I thought I would get out of it, which was salvation. Most of the missionaries, however, had much more petty goals in mind and served because they believed it would help with their marriage prospects, and it undoubtedly did.

Young men in the Church were, and probably still are, told that the harder they work on their mission the prettier their wife will be. However, from seeing how well some of the worst missionaries were able to marry, and how poorly some of the good missionaries were able to marry blew the claim right out of the water. As it turns out, it was just a lie the leaders tell they young men to try and motivate them do do what they sighed up for in the first place.

While I was in the MTC I not only learned how unmotivated, immature and lazy most missionaries were, which held true for the rest of my mission as well, but also how easily things can get distorted and completely blown out of proportion.

One of the missionaries who stayed in the room I was in decided to steal and hoard a brunch of fruit from the dining hall, but since he knew it would rot in the room, he put it in a bucket and sit it outside of the window in the windowsill so the cold winter air would keep it fresh. One day when we returned to the room this missionary decided to get some fruit from his fruit stash, but it was nowhere to be found. Later that day or the next day we were all called to the MTC mission president’s office to explain why there was a bucket of human wasted outside the room on the windowsill. I was the first to be called in and I quickly set things right, and while the mission president was upset that one of the missionaries was breaking the rules, he was happy to learn that we were not deficating in a bucket and leaving it for the maintenance man to find.

Despite the fact that I had read the Bible lots of times and could quote large portions of it, I did not fully comprehend what I was reading and was not aware of the blatant contradiction to the doctrines of the Church and therefore I was unaware of how completely impossible it would be for me to ever earn my salvation. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the king of Corinth, the city in which large portions of the New Testament of the Bible was written, twice cheated death and when he finally died was given a cruel punishment by Zeus, which was to forever have to roll a large boulder up a hill in Hades, just to have it roll back down at the end of the day. No matter how many times Sisyphus got the boulder up the hill, his task was impossible because it would never stay there and he would have to do it again, over and over for eternity. In the dictionary, a Sisyphean task is defined as a task that can never be completed, and for any human to ever earn their salvation is the very epitome of a Sisyphean task.

Since the fall of Adam, humans are inherently sinful and can never overcome their sins on their own and become righteous any more than Sisyphus could successfully get the boulder up the hill. Trying to buy our salvation is like floating in the middle of the ocean with a kitchen sponge, trying to drain the ocean. It can never be done. Luckily for us though, we don’t have to overcome sin on our own and Jesus has done it for us, not because we deserve it or could earn it in any way, but rather as a free gift out of his love and good will toward us.

Since the LDS Church is so works and performance based, I have always been more than a little flummoxed at how nonchalant so many members of the Church are about the rules and about their own salvation. When I was super into the Church I felt as if it were somehow my duty to make sure all members of the Church followed the rules and reached their highest potential, and I realize that more than a few people hated me for doing so. When I called out one member on my mission for breaking the rules he said, “God knows our hearts and will judge us based on our ability and not just on our performance.” Immediately I replied, “Yes, but can you honestly say that you could not follow this rule if you tried?” Of course, he had to admit that he could follow the rule if he tried, so I pointed out that if he did not reach exaltation he would have fairly been judged on both his ability and his performance.

It was a long journey, but now that I have come to realize that it is all about Jesus and what He did and not about us and what we do I am a lot less cocky and a lot less of an overbearing, judgemental jerk. I used to fret over every little mistake I made, wondering it it was the one that would keep me from Heaven, but now I am a lot more relaxed, and while I strive to do what will make God happy, I know that if I am saved it won’t be because I am good but because He is.

Looking back, I realize that the major difference between me and the other missionaries, other than the fact that I have always had a work ethic on steroids and their work ethic was almost nonexistent, was that I actually believed what the Church taught and cared; they either didn’t truly believe it or they didn’t really care. Many missionaries, and as I came to discover, members as well, lived as if they either didn’t believe in the doctrine or didn’t care. My mission president, however, was and is a true believer, which is admirable, though I pray for him in hopes that he will one day come to true Christianity.

Both on my mission and after, active members of the Church would tell me that I read the Book of Mormon too much and that I put far too much stock in what the Church taught and based too much of my life on the Church. I would often respond that either it is the most important thing in the world or it is not important at all; there is no feasible way in which it could only be marginally important. If the Church’s teachings were true than one would have to follow ALL rules to be saved, and if the Church’s teachings were not true than there would be absolutely no reason whatsoever to follow any of them. A lot of Mormons say, “Even if the Church were not true it would be the best way to live your life,” which is not even remotely true.

I recently had someone ask me if I had converted anyone to Mormonism during my mission, and I said, “Sadly, yes. I wish I could reach them and get them out, and I pray for them that God will take them out of Mormonism and bring them to true Christianity.” I learned a lot on my mission, but if I had it to do over I wouldn’t because I don’t want to be responsible for leading anyone away from the true God of the Bible to the god of Mormonism, which is no god at all.