Margie started browsing LDS missionary blogs shortly after ages missionaries was dropped from 19 to 18 for boys and from 21 to 19 for girls in 2012. Hilarious highlights are posted below with spelling, punctuation and syntax generally in tact. Enjoy this cultural Mormon Moment that will probably only last a few years because this "missionary surge" will be short lived.

Missionary Blog, Chile - November 2014

Pray for me. I need a lot of help to turn these Chileans around from their previous ways of thinking.

Lamentablemente, the women here aren't a cent more chaste, and the heat has melted off the majority of their clothes. It's like Europe, I guess, with rampant tentaci˜n and romance in everywhere. Coupled with the fact that South American women are very attractive to me. Dang it.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how they say that the rich are unreceptive to the gospel and the poor, the opposite at times. We went down a street that would be considered rich in Chile, and every single person ignored us or turned us down. The difference is night and day. I never really imagined it was exactly as they say it it. Many wealthy people are selfish with their money and don't have an ounce of interest in God, because they are so blessed with the money.

The lack of success is on account of many little things, but it made me think in a way that I never have before. When some guy wags his finger at us from inside his house, he's shunning his own salvation just because he couldn't listen to some boys for two seconds. It makes me sad, really. Now as we walk down the street, people who ignore us when we say hola, people who lie about being busy, it's ridiculous. Sadly, so much of the world is like this. Imagine how terrible it would be to die, and find out that the whole time the boys who came to your door that you rejected we trying to help you, and now it is too late... it's really really sad. Sometimes I wonder deeply how many of God's children he will lose.

Elder Travis Legg Ghana Accra West Mission - October 2014

Twelve year old church slave. Could have been stabbed at church. Exposure to Ebola - Sunday, November 2, 2014

Ok so baptism! Each companionship in the district baptized someone this week. That ended Elder Hoskins 6 months without baptisms. And Elder Fairwell and I baptized 2!

The first was James, he is 12, and he was just adopted by our branch president. He was invited into their home, basically to be their slave, but he's happy because at his own house he was still pretty much a slave, but there they beat him and didn't allow him to go to church or school. Teaching him was fun because he doesn't speak any English, but he is so humble and willing to do anything. He always wants to do both the opening and closing prayers for our lessons and he is just great!

"I don't really know but my branch president was watching one last night when we went to go teach his "son". Ok check this, how dang easy is it to get a baptism when your branch president basically adopts a 12 year old boy and brings him to church. Woop woop workin hard or hardly workin? Anyway we BAPTIZE!!!"

Then there is Esther. She is dating a member in 2nd branches branch presidency. She is a teacher, and she is a spiritual power house. All this time I have been thinking she was just going to be baptized for the guy, but it's for sure not that! She is awesome! We will come to her conversion story soon.

The baptism went perfect. Elder Moyer was one of the baptists, and he was scared out of his pants! But he only had to baptize his candidate twice, since the second time he basically threw her into the water and yanked her out! It was awesome.

Church yesterday was pretty exciting. For the second hour of church we always have an investigator class where all of the investigators and recently baptized members are. Since I have come here we have had this boy who always sits in the back and doesn't talk. None of the missionaries are teaching him and no one else in the class knows who he is.

So 2 weeks ago I went through a bunch of effort and detective work and I found out that in his family he has 1 return missionary brother, 1 current missionary brother, and 1 inactive father. This boy is mentally disabled. Reason for his father not coming to church was because this boy beat him up and now he is embarrassed that a disabled person beat him.

We were told to just leave him be and all will be fine. But this Sunday something was off. In sacrament meeting he kept moving seats and acting weird. Then for investigators class we were learning about developing your talents. 30 minutes in he raises his hand and proclaims that being an armed robber is a talent! Then there is an argument over that. Now Explicit part NOT for children: he says if he takes some drugs that cause him to have a long term erection that is a talent!

Ok regular part again, he then tells the teacher, my recent convert that I begged to teach the class. Then he says that if he got it in his mind to come over and stab her that would be a talent. Throughout this class first enters our branch president and sees this guy disturbing us, he tells us to ignore him and leaves. A few minutes later the district president enters and tells us to ignore him and he leaves. We are finishing up class, when now enters a member and a police officer! They arrest this dude and take him outside. Apparently he had a knife on him and he had stabbed a member earlier that day!

The officer was not prepared though seeing as he forgot his handcuffs and was unable to restrain this guy. The crazy guy beat up the police officer just outside the church gates and it took a while for him to be restrained! Man that was an awesome Sunday. It was kind of scary to look back at though, because he was threatening the teacher, and from where he was sitting I was the only one between him and her! I coulda been stabbed in the middle of church! That woulda been pretty cool right! :)

Haha mom you said that people feeding me well is one less thing for you to worry about. But let's throw this out there. Ebola is passed through body fluids. We are in the sweatiest place ever. I shake hands with about a hundred people a day. Then when we eat. It is all out of one big bowl. With the other people there. All of us using our hands to take the food from the bowl, then into our mouths. Hhhmmmm......I wonder what that could lead to ;)

But mom don't worry about Ebola coming to Ghana because well... it's already here! duh duh duh. There have been a few cases so far. One was in a place called Nsawam, which is between me and Accra, and only like 50 miles away :) Very close! I will be meeting people from there tomorrow actually! Oh and Ebola thrives in the bush by the way.

And along with that, even more urgent in my country, is the fact that we are having a Cholera outbreak! For the "health something something" here, that one of my investigators works, have declared it an emergency. In Accra they are going to churches and schools teaching people about it trying to get them to be safe. Best protection is to wash your hands with running water........yeah so I am in the danger zone! I get to wash my hands a little less than once a week!

Mission President's Wife Blogs About Missionary Problems - May 7, 2014

I have cherry picked (cut & paste) some of her less flattering comments about the missionaries. She bitches a lot, goes on and on and over shares. IMO, I think the way these missionaries are being treated borders on abuse and I am sickened about all the antidepressants pushed on these kids.

"Hi Everyone, Wow! We just had the week that Mission Presidents only have nightmares about. Right in the midst of several conferences on the Western Slope that we were really looking forward to, we had two runaway missionaries. An Elder in Denver took off on foot with his luggage. I am not sure where he thought he was going to go without any transportation or money but he was gone for a few hours. Someone spotted him in the park and called the nearest missionaries who tried to talk to him. He would not talk to them and just told them to go away. Next thing we knew, he disappeared again without the luggage, he just left it in the park. They finally found him in the nearest church, Praying! After much persuasion, our Assistants were able to talk him into going back to his apartment and they stayed with him all night. His companion was with some other Elders all night. We were 4 and a half hours away in Grand Junction. What a helpless feeling that was! We were so relieved around 11:30 that night that he was safe.

The next morning, we were preparing to go to a conference for some of our Sister Missionaries when that same Elder called us and said that he was going home. He was adamant about it. All of this was so shocking because this Elder is one of our best missionaries. He has been very obedient and diligent and effective. He has also changed the lives of all of his companions. We need this Elder to stay and of course, the Lord needs him to stay.

That same morning, one of our Sister Leader Trainers, who was supposed to be in charge of the conference was so sick that I had to take her to and urgent care center. We were there for 5 1/2 hours. While we were there, Blake called me to tell me that one of our Sister Missionaries had run away and left a note for her companions (she was in a threesome) saying that she loved them but it was time for her to leave. She only took her purse and small bag with a notebook with her. I felt like he had just kicked me in the stomach. She was serving in a very small town where everyone knows each other and everyone was looking for her including the police. We were just sick inside. We hurried and ate and prayed and called her mother to tell her (that was the hardest phone call ever) and then we ended up leaving right after the conference and driving to Denver to talk to our run away Elder that night. After the Sister had been missing for about nine hours, they found her. As soon as I heard, I just started crying with relief.

One of the biggest problems that we have in the mission is the mental health of our missionaries. Missions are stressful and if there are any tendencies for mental illness, it will come out in the mission field. And when they are suffering, we suffer with them. We love them! Winter scares me because I know that it is only going to get worse as the days get darker. We are keeping the LDS Family services busy and we are so grateful that we have their services here.

I received a phone call from one of our new sisters and the minute she started talking to me, she started crying. My heart broke immediately. It really is just like when one of your own children is hurting over something. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was feeling so homesick and sad and had a terrible stomach ache every day and that even though she had gone to college for two years before her mission and been away from home, she had never felt like this before. I told her that when President Murdock got home, we would call her and he would give her a blessing.

After we ate dinner, we called her and she and her companion came over. We talked with them and Blake shared with her the letter that I sent you, {redacted}. She loved the letter. I talked with her companion and then she received a priesthood blessing. She seemed much happier when they left. We saw her again yesterday and she was 100% better. She is so cute and she will be such a great asset to this mission. Her companion is fantastic too. We love them so much. We love all of our missionaries so much.

The third Elder had recently started on an antidepressant that had the rare side effect of causing deeper depression and suicidal thoughts. We had him come over to our house immediately. I happen to have the Dr.'s cell phone number and texted him on Sunday night to ask if I could call him. He was kind enough to respond and he was able to squeeze him in on Monday morning. Blake took the Elders to the Airport while I took the other Elder to the Dr. He switched his medicine up completely and now we are fervently praying that the bad one will hurry and get out of his system and the good one will start working soon. In the mean time he has been living with us.

We went home and fixed dinner and then a couple of our Sisters came over after their church ended. They had called on Saturday and one of them had just had a panic attack and they were both so stressed out. We talked with them for over an hour and gave one of them MOQ which is a series of question determining depression and anxiety. Blake gave her a blessing and then we fed them and then they left. They had not been gone longer than 30 minutes when they called and felt like the other Sister needed to talk to us in more depth. We told them to come back.

We then talked to the other Sister, gave her the MOQ and Blake gave her a blessing. While they were still there, some Elders dropped by to talk to us about one of their new investigators who claims to be responsible for the deaths of 8 people. He did not clarify that. They said that he was a referral from a member and they taught him in the member's home. They said that he seemed very sincere and had a great desire to know truth. We just told them to always teach him with the member and to follow the spirit. By this time, it was 9 o'clock. I called one more Sister to give her the MOQ. That was the 4th one that day. The darker and colder it gets, the more our missionaries struggle with depression. It worries me greatly. Many of them never had problems before now. Missions are stressful! And missions are wonderful. We love being here and we love being able to share this great message with the people here in Colorado. We know that we are so blessed by this wonderful opportunity. We love our missionaries and we love all of you and appreciate all of the prayers that are said on our behalf. Until next weekÉ.we love you!"

I do not understand why there is so much mental illness. It just plagues too many of our missionaries and then it affects all of their companions too. Every time my phone rings, I almost dread answering for fear that it is another missionary with stress, anxiety, or depression and so many times it manifests itself in physical illnesses. I know that we are not the only mission that is seeing this and way too many kids are having to go home. I would have never guessed that we would be dealing with this to this extent

I picked up Blake at the house and we went to visit some Elders at their home. One of these Elders has been suffering from depression his whole mission (he has been out a year) and most of his teenage years. He has been telling us that he just wants to go home for about a month now. We finally got him talked into going to a doctor to get some medication but he has this great worry about side affects. He did start on some medication on wednesday night and said that it made him very irritable the next day. He took it again on Thursday night and again he felt very irritable all the next day. I called the Dr and told him about the irritability and he said that would be extremely rare but not impossible so he change the meds. When I called the Elder to tell him that we were changing the medication, he refused to even pick it up from the pharmacy and said that he just wants to go home. That is why we went to see him. After much pleading and expressing to him how much we love him and begging him to try this new medicine, we finally talked him into thinking and praying about coming to live at the mission home for the rest of the transfer and giving the medicine a chance to work. Blake then gave him a blessing and we went home."

Sister Missionary - Brook's Blog - April 30, 2014 - This is not a spoof. Should be in Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

California Bakersfield - April 23, 2014

"Honestly, nothing very interesting happened this week. At least not that I can remember. A lot of rejections this week, but I still had a blast.

My favorite ones are when people barely poke their heads out of their doors and just say "no" and slam the door shut before you can say anything! I think it's hilarious! Sometimes I knock again just for kicks.

Or when little kids answer the door.. then they go run to their parents, saying, "mom! someone is here!" and then you can hear the parents saying to tell them that they're busy.. so when the kids come back to relay the message, I just say "tell your parents 'it's the police, it's very important'," and they usually go back and get them! Ha! >:} That gets their attention."

Angola Luanda - April 23, 2014

"This week we had some good lessons. Something kinda funny that happened, We were teaching a lesson to a recent convert named Leonel and we were talking about faith. He asked that if we have faith, why cant we float in the air. I told him that if we had enough faith, we could. And he asked why we dont have enough faith to float, so i told him i did, and asked him if he wanted to see. so i stood up, and did a magic trick that i learned back home, where it makes it look like youre floating about an inch off of the ground, when in reality youre just lifting up your heels, but because of the angle, it looks like youre floating.... Well he was pretty amazed haha. He started calling me a Pode Ninja. He came to church yesterday and was asking me to teach him how i did it. and said that he had been up all night trying to figure out how to do it haha. I just keep telling him to read his scriptures and pray, and maybe he'll be able to do it one day :)"

Brazil Cuiaba - April 23, 2014

"The rest of the week was pretty calm. But we did a cool thing called "Big Bang". What we did is reach all of our goals for contacts, lessons, and new investigators in two days and then we have the rest of the week to focus on the people who are really interested in marriages. It was really cool and we got a lot done. One of the ladies we did contact with was VERY rude. We went up to her and told her that we were missionaries and asked if we could share a message with her. She said no and that we were wasting our time with her. So we smiled and tried to talk more but she kept giving rude excuses. So my companion stopped and said,"Look, we are paying money and time to be here to speak with you and we don't even know if we are going home alive and well one day. So please listen for a second." She softened up a little bit but still rejected us."

Colorado Denver South - April 23, 2014

"Insane story time. So we were just trying to find people to teach yesterday, contacting referrals and such so we go to this apartment that the Elders had told us to visit (there is a girl in her 20's that supposedly lives there). We knock on the door and we hear voices then we hear the door lock. Well that's weird, and obviously people are home, so we knock again. This time we heard foot steps after a LONG pause and then a deep breath and the door swings open. Standing there was a dude, DRIPPING WET. Like he just got out of a pool status, wearing nothing but a tiny little towel. Yuck. We can hear the shower still going on in the bathroom so we're confused why he even left it. But we ask if the girl lives there, he says yeah, then we explain the Elders sent us and he just stares at us, so we tell him not to worry, we'll come back, they're obviously busy (gross-o) and he just stares and moves his hand a little and that's when I notice it... A matte black 9MM pistol. Aiming at us nonchalantly. Homeboy had a gun! What the heck! Before I could think I blurted out, "YOU HAVE A GUN, OH MY GOSH! I'M SORRY!" The 'I'm sorry' part came out a little sarcastic. He just nodded and mumbled yeah... Needless to say we departed quickly as we were still able to see down the barrel of that thing... WHAT THE HECK!

Who was this guy expecting! Who would answer the door naked but with a gun!? Just don't answer the dang thing! Continue with your shower! People are insane! And we are lucky he didn't blow our heads off, cuz he was ready too. Man alive.... We're gonna take a break from that house for a week or so... "

Laoag Phillipines - April 23, 2014

"I thought on my mission I would be serving people all of the time. I mean in other forms rather than just teaching them. But here, no one wants you to help them. I am not joking! They all say no! Well there was this Less active lady that we just stopped by. She was really sick and complaining that her husband wasn't helping her clean, but she needed to do it. So we went in and started doing it without gettign her approval. She got so mad!!! I was sweeping the floor and she came and tried to grab the broom from me and I wouldn't let go. And I wasn't going to. She was being so stubborn. She tried to grab the broom from me for a few minutes, but it wasn't going anywhere. Finally she got tired and just sat down and went off about how she was mad now that we wouldn't stop helping her clean. makes no sense haha. Anyways, it taught me that we need to be willing to let people help us in things! Yeah sometimes it is hard, and I would be the first one to say it, but I mean how would we serve others if everyone didn't allow it? haha."

Utah Salt Lake City - April 23, 2014

"Elder Clark did an amazing job too! He is the 70 over our mission, so he knows all that is going on! My favorite training by him was on Tithing. He expressed why it is so important to pay tithing, and that we should take our investigators to pay tithing. I thought that was so cool! I have never actually taken someone to the Bishops office and said, "so-n-so" wants to pay their tithing. So, that's on my plan of action to do.

He then had all the missionaries that were converts stand up and say how long it was before they started to pay their tithing after their confirmation. Not one did it right away, it was a few years after they had been baptize, and it was because it was something the missionaries didn't stress to much."

Armenia Yerevan - April 23, 2014

"A 90 year old women without a purpose in life."

I just wanted to tell you some what of a humorous/sad story. Yesterday we took a taxi to a town about 30 minutes away from Vanadzor to a small village called Spitak; it means "white" translated and it is where the earthquake happened in 1988. I think that it is called white because of all of the gravestones that cover the area. Anyway, there is really only one member that we could find on the myriad of lists that we have in our apartment and she is less active. So we went over to visit her and see if we could help her in any way. After teaching a nice lesson and talking about some of the problems that she was having, we noticed some movement on the bed across from us where we were sitting. It was a person! We found out that it was her 90 year old mom. We also discovered that every night she drinks vodka to go to bed. She is a 90 year old drunk. Now, I am not sure why i wanted to share that experience, but it taught me a powerful lesson. I think it taught me that without the Gospel, we all would live a life without meaning and comfort. I prayed that night that those that I have taught and have accepted the gospel will always be strong in their testimonies. It was an interesting experience.

New Mexico Farmington - April 2, 2014

"OK I'M GOING TO BE HONEST REAL FAST. I have found that the two worst types of companions you can have are 1) fat companions, and 2) 18 year old companions. Right now I am stuck with the latter. You wouldn't think a one-year difference would even be noticeable, but it TOTALLY IS. FRIG.

FRIG. this kid can be annoying"

Ecuador Quito - April 2, 2014

"The nursing aspect has kept me super busy this week. Tons of parasites, tons of infections, and tons of appts with Drs but we still were able to teach a ton. I wanted to share one nursing experience. So with this lowering of age, we have a lot of sisters that are struggling. Many didnt know the real reason why they were here in the field (didnt receive an answer if this is where they should be), and more and more choose to go home."

"We have a family we're teaching that wanted to come to the baptism but they got there right after the baptism while we were changing out of our wet clothes. It's too bad they couldn't come for it all since they really want to learn more but they say they're going to come to church and come to the next baptism. They didn't come yesterday though but we're going to visit them this week and help them. The ward mission leader told them a while ago to go online and look up the church since they wanted to learn more. They did that and ended up reading anti-Mormon literature and bad stuff about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon that damaged their testimonies a little bit. They asked all these questions to the missionary who was here before me but since he got transfered and we hadn't been able to visit them since they were always busy they've had all these doubts. We visited them last week and they asked us these questions. I remember reading all of that stuff before I left on the mission and it doesn't matter what people say because in the end only God can give us the answers. We told the family that they just need to ask personally pray and ask God if this is true. They seen changes in their life for listening to the missionaries and keeping the committmens [sic] so they know it's true deep down they just need to get on their knees and pray. We've followed up with them and they said that they are praying but say they haven't received an answer yet."

Hawaii Honolulu - April 2, 2014

"So when I first entered the area, Elder Fuhriman talked about one of the stars on the basketball team that had been actively taking lessons. He all of a sudden stopped coming to church and meeting with the missionaries, so I never had the opportunity to meet him, until this week! One of our Stake Presidents, who is a very influential man in the Laie Community, very boldly pulled him and another guy from the team who is not a member, into his office and told them that they were going to listen to the missionaries. So we met them at his house for dinner. We approached it very non threatening, and as friendly as possible. They agreed that after the play offs, we could begin to teach them on a regular basis and help them come to a conclusion whether or not the church is true."

Arizona Tucson - April 2, 2014

"Turns out, I have found the satanic street in Rio Rico! I thought everyone here were the nicest people, but it turns out that there are actually some people that would rather have the missionaries dead! We knocked on this one door, started teaching a kid named Ricky about the Restoration, and all of a sudden his mom comes out. She tells us how we don't believe in the same Bible (actually ma'am, your "Bible" is a kid's version that has been translated from my version). Then she started saying we believed in a false prophet (how do you know he is a false prophet ma'am? He just is, okay?). Then she started saying how the Bible never talks about the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith (actually, Ezekial and then Revelations will answer both of those issues). She was so closed-minded that she wouldn't let us say a word. By the end of the contact, I just told her, "Ma'am, we could answer every single question you have, but you honestly don't want to hear any of our answers. I'm sorry for ruining your day, we didn't want you to start fighting with us. Hope you have a good day."

"In other news, one of the missionaries in our zone went apostate & started driving all over Tucson, visiting his Polynesian buddies. I guess he just decided he had enough with the normal missionary routine, so he decided he would just hang out & watch movies. So their car has been taken away, & I don't think he will last more than 2 weeks in Tucson - shorter if he does something stupid."

"We tracted for easily 2 hours every day this week. It gets old after a little while so you have to come up with things to help you keep up good spirits. Something that I love to do is come up with a random word that you have to use in your conversation at the door. For example, if your word is "dandilion" you would have to say something like, "I love that there isn't a single dandilion in Arizona!" or something weird like that. You get some interesting words you have to use! But of course we keep it appropriate and spiritual still."

"At dinner on Wednesday, we talked about the Temple. Brother and Sister Zufelt work at the Mesa Temple Friday and Saturday. I learned a lot from talking with them.

1) When we go through the Temple for others, we do NOT renew our Temple convenants as well. We only make them for the other people.

2) Our new names will allow us to use our Seer Stones in the next life.

3) The Catholic church every 25 years breaks down a wall and they all step through it to the other side. It represents the veil like we have in our Temple. However, they don't know what the meaning is behind it. They only do it cause it's tradition."

Texas McAllen - April 2, 2014

"So before church, we went to our investigators house to go wake them up and get them ready for church and we went to this one guys house and knocked on his door. He came out and he was all beat up. We were like "What happened!" And he told us that last night he got mugged by the cartel. So we did all we could to help him out and then we lost track of time and thats why we were late to church. Pretty interesting right?! haha."

"Hello Hello!!

Good news!! I was able to baptize Chris!! It was so awesome. It turns out, he did get released from probation and he only has to do some community service or something. Pretty sweet experience for my first baptism. I only messed up twice on the prayer haha!"

Georgia Atlanta - April 2, 2014

"We are 'winning over' this Catholic lady little by little. She is nice but came on very strongly as a 'well I can't talk to you I'm Catholic' kind of thing. Just the other day we got into her home for twenty minutes and I taught them about Temple Marriage and then said a prayer with her whole family. She has a sort of joking-ness about us. Like, before we came she was like, 'Well I have company right now and they are all Catholics. So if they hear that Mormons are coming they will all run away!' We also busted the myth about multiple wives right off the bat. We never go in a say how it used to happen, but depending on the depth of their question we usually just say, 'No, that's a rumor that's not true. I don't think I could handle more than one wife.' And then we laugh and become the good guys :)"

Philippines Baguio - April 2, 2014

"President Monahan has a new focus for the missionaries and we have had some fun experiences this week. He wants us to preach by the way (mga may kotse) to the people that have cars. We need leaders and people who arent afraid to speak. It's sad but poverty among the members is hurting growth. So we try to teach to people that have cars and rich but their hard to find because only few people can afford a car."

Zambia Lusaka - April 2, 2014

"We are still doing lots of finding each and everyday in hopes of finding people that will really help establish the church. This mission in the past has had quite a hard time because missionaries were kind of just doing what they thought would help. Mission before was just about "finding, teaching, and baptizing." Therefore there have been thousands of people baptized in Africa and many were not truly converted because they didnt truly understand the gospel and now there are so many less actives. Now the mission is trying to emphasize us teaching people that will truly understand the gospel and will help establish the church so we are trying to focus on people that are more settled and educated so we can have stronger leaders here in the church. So that is somethings that me and my companion have really been working on this week and let me tell you it is sooooooo hard! Honestly it is so much easier to teach those people that are poor because they are humble and they listen and as we try to find more educated people we definitely get more rejections."

France Lyon - April 2, 2014

"OH. I almost forgot to tell you. A catholic lady blessed me this week. It was...a little strange I'll admit. We had been talking about the plan du salut (plan of salvation), and she is SOOO Catholic, but really willing to listen and also really sick so she can't go outside anymore. But we were saying that it was time for us to go and whatnot when she asked if she could do one thing for us. Me and Soeur Evans just looked at each other. Sure? Then she came over to me, put her thumb on my forehead and said, "Je te benis." ("I bless you.") I wasn't mocking what she was doing by any means, but my instinct told me to close my eyes and imagine that an old witch was putting a magical spell on me that would protect me from danger for the rest of my life. I should probably repent. But at least she meant well :)"

Cotonou Benin, West Africa - April 2, 2014

"This week during teaching I decided I was going to let Legbanon really take the reins in teaching and we were teaching one of our Amis about prophets. While teaching I said "You can tell him the story about Noah and the Ark right?" and so my companion started telling the story. I almost started zoning out a little bit until he started telling a surprising part of the story I had never heard before. He had already talked about how Noah was commanded by God to build a boat, but then continued on to say that the people who mocked and made fun of Noah went and POOPED in that boat to make even more fun of him hahahaha but, it gets better. God then cursed this people with a rash on their skin, that couldn't be healed unless they went back to the boat, took their poop, and rubbed it all over themselves. Then after they were healed, God sent the floods and they all died. I asked him where he had heard that story after the lesson, and he was like "what do you mean?! That's how the story goes!" when I continued to tell him that it is written nowhere in the bible and that we cant teach it because its false doctrine he continued to say "No, its not false doctrine, that's the story! I read it in a book once!" Eventually we got to the bottom of it, but yeah, that's what Im dealing with right now haha. It seems God never ceases to find challenges for us to deal with."

Canada Winnipeg - April 2, 2014

"After the BBQ we asked her if she would come to church the next day. She said no. We told her we would stop by at 9:00 am to wake her up (she said she wouldn't make any promises). Elaine has a 32 pound cat named Christopher, and its belly drags on the floor. Just saying, this is the fattest cat I have ever seen. So, when we get to her door step Sunday morning, there's a note on the door that says "sorry, I can't come to church today because Christopher had kittens and I need to watch after them". There was a picture on the note of a cat that looked like Christopher. First thing I though was, what the heck, Christopher's a girl? Well, it turns out she lied so she wouldn't have to come to church. She pulled the picture off the Internet. When we stopped by after church, she told us that it was just a joke. She thought it was really funny. It wasn't very funny to us. That being said, we really do think she'll come to church next week (Fingers crossed)."

Australia Melbourne-Tasmania - Feb 2014

Monday-Monday was the business. E-mailed home and then went to the shops (got food and stuff). We were allowed to Skype home for like 5 minutes to get it all set up for our Boxing Day, States' Christmas. So anyways we had like set-up and confirmed with this guy. Bro Barker, he's not the most reliable. So we go over like an hour after emailing and he's not home. Went back to the flat, had lunch and kept calling him, absolutely nothing. So we go over an hour later and he's not there. We had the bright idea to "sneak" in. Problem is this guy smells, like worse than anything I‰ve ever smelled. So Elder Jones ends up sneaking through the bathroom window. GROSS. Got inside and got it all set up. So we had one companion peeking out the window while the other was setting it up‰super cool to see the family though. So we sneak back out, and BOOM, nobody knows but us! That was why it seemed so rushed. Then we went to go visit this old lady. Sis Murrault. She loves to talk, and doesn't really care about feedback. She insisted that she feed us though (I was trying to get out of it because her house isn't the most sanitary) but in the end we caved and let her feed us because she really wanted to. So while she's preparing the food Elder Jones has the bright idea to run out the back door, through the front and sit back down to see if she would notice if one of us had gone or not. Well she didn't, so we started laughing super hard. I was up next and made it, did it a few more times and then we tried to pull a double. Me out the back around to the front and him out the front around to the back, I made it without being caught, but he got caught sneaking back in. It was pretty good fun."

Because yesterday was the monday after Australia day they had it off... yea i dont really know how it works but long story short i had no computer because everything was closed. things are going well here in taz though!! my comp and i have 6 ppl lined up for baptism in the next few months... but i dont really want to baptize them because the ward is really bad with new converts! they make them so uncomfortable and just single them out so bad!! idk (I don't know) what to do with those crazies. my comp and i have tried serving them but they dont seem to care much if we help them or not. we will just have to really convert our investigators to the gospel.

Arkansas Little Rock - Feb 2014

"That night we had an appointment with a church of Christ family where their dad has been a minister for like 20 years. So when we get in there, we say an opening prayer, ask if they have any questions, and then first thing his son does is go over to the computer and pull up a site called Ex-mormon.org. We knew we were in for one at that moment. So they just started ponding us with these questions about this stuff they have read and frankly I didn't know what to say. So then I just said "Well we see that you have looked up stuff on exmormon and other MAN MADE websites but how has your Book of Mormon reading been going. It was"so shocking"when they told me they haven't even read a chapter of it yet."

New York New York North - Feb 2014

"So we were doing less active lookups and started looking for this woman that nobody has heard of. The stake patriarch/temple sealer opened the door. Yes, we looked up the stake patriarch's "less active"wife. So funny. We had a good chat with them for a while. And a laugh or two..."

"Last night, on the way to our dinner appointment, we were halted at the elevator by some teenage kid who just sat there staring at us. This is how the conversation went:

Kid: So are you guys like *starts singing from Book of Mormon the Musical*

Me: Yeah, but we are the real deal.

Kid: Question, are you guys really that racist *continues to sing poorly*

Me: Nope, not even a little bit. We believe we are all a big heavenly family, actually.

Kid: Well, I'm jewish and people have been trying to convert us for centuries. HOW DARE YOU!!! JEWS WOULD DIE TO STAY JEWS *proceeds to block the elevator until the doors close so we can't get on*"

"We also got 2 media referrals this week! Crazy right? So we have met with one of them. The other is a little bit more slippery. The one we met with is named D G. The first visit with him was a party. He is extremely open. And he went off on super long tangents about how he believes that mermaids, aliens, and dinosaurs are all just children of the devil or demons. He believes that there is a temple in Israel that is acting as a lid holding all of the dinosaurs and demons in Hell. We gave an introduction to the Plan of Salvation and are excited to go help him to understand more about God's plan for us so that he doesn't have to worry about all of those weird things."

"Yesterday I got to go on a companionship exchange (referred to in mission lingo as a split) with Elder Holzer. He is one of my zone leaders. He is from Bountiful, Utah and is the epitome of a sheltered Utah Mormon. He has played video games once. He played Pac-man. For 5 minutes. . . . He didn't know what a gay person was until he came to New York. And now he is serving in Chelsea.... which has an extremely heavy gay population. God really does have a sense of humor. He tried to brag about how he would call people to repentance on first contact. So far he has done that with a gay man in Chelsea and a group of about 10 teenagers smoking pot. How hardcore is that? Haha not my style at all.... but whatever floats your missionary boat I guess?"

Nevada Reno - Feb 2014

"Anyways the work continues as we try to find, teach, and serve. Well let's start with finding. We were talking with this lady on the street and she is kind of interested so we keep talking. I go into the 1st lesson then out of no where my companion says, "If there is not a God explain lion cubs." It caught me so off guard that I just stopped talking and looked at him and then the lady we were talking with looks at him and just goes "WHAT?" So he says it again and then there is another very long pause and he finally says, "If there wasn't a God how could something so mean be so cute?" Well there goes our new investigator because once he said that the spirit was gone and she didn't care anymore."

Indiana Indianapolis - Feb 2014

"We had a hard lesson with a wonderful young couple this week, and he basically told us all the doctrine he didn't agree with. The hard part was that he got all his information directly from LDS.org. No anti. But he couldn't come to terms with some things. It was really really hard, and it broke my heart when he said they couldn't meet anymore, and he gave us back the Book of Mormon. Sis. Bambrough and I both cried in the lesson, and we just bore our testimonies."

Texas Lubbock - Feb 2014

"We ran into a bi-sexual this week, that was probably one of the few times I was completely speechless. I literally did not know what to say. Luckily Elder B saved the day and said something to him."

"Lets see i wanted to kill my comp sunday night because he got a call from president and as he was talking on the phone he fell to his knee's and started bawling i was like oh great who died but once he was off the phone he said i go home the 16th of next month so it was a good cry not a bad one. "

Washington Everett - Feb 2014

"Anyway, this week was good. We found 4 new investigators (that's a ton for us). Two of them were Tyson and Desiree, a humble couple who are currently living in a motel and doing the best they can to get their children back from CPS. Elder Lovell and his former companion had actually met Tyson and Desiree a few times at the library and had good interactions with them before a member in Lynden ever referred them to us for welfare assistance."

"Hahah we probably won't be getting iPads any time soon. This mission and the Seattle missions have a history of not being very obedient...soooo who knows though. I might see it. The mission I feel is on the up, the younger missionaries are gaining experience. I feel I might see them. But as of yet...no word"

Arizona Scottsdale - Feb 2014

"So we have these new investigators named Rudy and Norma. They are awesome. We saw Rudy sitting outside his apartment one day and went to talk to him. He's probably 300 hundred pounds, has tatts all over and has dents all over his head from getting beating with a hammer and bat. He's hardcore. So we went back a couple days later for our first lesson....it was soo cool! He basically told us for like an hour how much he loves God and Jesus Christ. He kept saying how he wants to always keep in touch with us no matter where we end up, even after the mission. My kids are TOTALLY gonna meet him. The spirit was so strong. It was one of the coolest experiences of my mission. We had to pull the car over after, just to let it sink in. He also told us how he wants to be baptized....we never brought it up or hardly said a word. A huge part of being a missionary is just listening."

" I had been pretty scared to talk to people on the streets for the first few months in Arizona. People aren't very friendly here, if ya didn't know that. Most are homeless, drunk, or gay. (No offense if you fall into one of these categories). During a Zone Training Meeting we had, we were brought across the scripture Doctrine and Covenants, section 60, verses 2 and 3. That changed my entire way of thinking and actually scared me a little. Point is, I now have no fear in the people we talk to, but only in not opening my mouth."

"Last P-day I got in a little argument, that led me to hit another Elder. I have never been all that fond of men touching other men, and it happens A LOT here. Who would've thought on a mission? Anyway, one thing led to another and I ended up hitting him a couple times. The GOOD thing is that it stopped. Problem solved."

"We have a few new investigators. One is an 80 yr old woman who can't walk, see, or hear very well. Maybe we can find the lessons is braill? (Not sure if that's how you spell it) She is VERY close to God, and wants to improve her life. Other investigators are a younger woman who is learning english. She is very VERY catholic, so wish us luck. If any of you have any Bible references that are SOLID, let me know. I know a few, but probably not enough."

Georgia Macon - Feb 2014

"We've been teaching an amazing investigator who came to church for the primary program this week! She is deaf and lives out of our area, but we teach her because our ward has the only ASL interpreters in the stake. Sister Ballard and I have been teaching her and she has been progressing well, but a couple days ago we were talking to her about her ride to church, and she asked if we were Baptist or Catholic. So I guess we need to go back and review the Restoration"

"This week has had its ups and its downs. Sister Ballard and I have gone to visit some less-actives in our ward and a majority of the people we met do not remember they were baptized! That is surprisingly common in our area, but usually they remember as we ask about their life. In one case this week she had never heard of the Book of Mormon or heard even of the church. But she was a sweet woman, she invited us in and fed us and we talked about the church. She promised to read the Book of Mormon and said we could come back, so maybe she'll remember the church as she reads."

"Um this area is hard for multiple reasons. Yes it is a very rich area overall, they all say their either Baptist or Catholic, and we think they are just too prideful. But that's not everyone, so there are those few who we do get that chance to talk to. But instead of a white field it feels like a needle in a haystack at times."

". . . Then that night, as we were tracting, the cops were called on us again. We had 4 contacts that night, and 3 of them called the cops on us. One lady was talking to them while we were walking up to the door.... so that was a fun night. ha :) But I'm doing really well :)"

California Rancho Cucamonga - Feb 2014

"We had a lesson with a man this week and the Spirit was so strong.We were testifying and prophesying and making promises in the name of Jesus Christ. It was so rad. We set the date for March 15thand after going back and forth with him for a bit he looked at me and said, you should be a closer. Have you ever sold used cars before? - I chuckled and answered "no". But I told him that I did love him so I was not going to allow him to refuse something that will bless his life, without a fight."

"So last week we were able to get two new gators. Their names are Silvia and Gustavo (Jr) and they are pretty cool! Gustavo had one of his friends there, and she stayed for the lesson. She was also the translator for us, because Silvia's English isn't too good, so she was translating a lot of questions, and had a few of her own as well. Gustavo asked one question, then after that he said no more. He asked "Is there a Heavenly Mother?" and I didn't know what to say because that's not a question we're usually faced with. So I looked at Williamson and gave him a look like "what should we say?" because I didn't want to get into deep doctrine. So that back and forth looking between us took about five seconds, but it felt longer than that. Then out of nowhere Silvia's like "yeah! No more questions, Gustavo!" lol So idk how much she already knows, but yeah that was the cool part of the lesson"

Arkansas Little - Feb 2014

"Last week we had dinner with some members, and we asked if they knew anyone we could teach and they said nothing good has ever come from sharing the gospel after all these years (and they are pretty seasoned), so they have just kind of gave up. I promised them if they would pray for a missionary experience that night that the Lord would put someone in their path. Well 3 days later a man came and knocked on their door and said he was a direct descendant of Brigham Young, he wasn't a member of the church but wants to no more and he heard they were members so he was wondering if they could teach him! He came to church this sunday and now we are going to teach him! Crazy stuff!"

"Davidgot baptized this last saturday. It was so awesome. He even shaved his scruffly beard for the baptism! This is the guy I was telling you about that has a house full of guns andexplosives. He is awesome though.

So Little Rock ward is pretty awesome. The people are great! They don't feed us to much or come out with us hardly at all so we are going to try to get that going!"

England London South - Feb 2014 "1 thing that happened that was really cool this week is that Damion, member of our ward, came out with us so much.I had more experiences with elder tiko and Damion in 2 days than i have had in several months. The experiences range from crazy to amazingly spiritual. 1 Day Damion came out with us for 12 hrs. Damion bless his heart is wonderful but a bit crazy. He is recovering from some word of wisdom issue. His heart is in the right place and he has incredible desires to do what is right.He hastons of enthusiasm. I wish the rest of the church membershad such enthusiasm and love for sharing the gospel. So we took him out on tuesday all day street contacting knocking andteaching. At first it took Damion some time to get used to not cutting in and speaking too much without us directing the message to him. One time Damion got so defensive with one jehovah witness. They almost fought i jumped in pushing Damion aside and the other african guy and it got so crazy they were yelling and pushing. The african guy said'I'm going to deck you to the ground if you don't be quiet.'. . . . Later we had dinner at chicken base with Damion and he was great but at the end of the night he met some of his friends in the fast food place and started teaching them and they wouldn't listen he got jokingly frustrated and then it just led to a crazy epic bash and then muslims got involved and theystarted just arguing with Damion. Elder tiko and I told Damion to let it gobecause it was crazy atheist belief.

The next day we went knocking on more doors and found a super open elect australian YSA girl who has been looking for a youth group to join. She said she would come to church. It was a great teach!Damion was with us for one more contactandhe got upset at an old lady at her door and said to her 'Are you afraid of us or something?'I waslike pulling him away and saying no more, enoughand toldDamion that we were done with visits. So this was the last time we took him out or plan to take him out and the lady got so mad she put on Facebook that 3 mormon missionaries tried to force themselves intoher home and it was on Cavershams News town page and our stake president found out and called us to tell us this and said she called the police and made a report on us.It wascrazy and the stake president had to call and fix everythingfor us.We wrote a note to the lady apologizing and told Damion we couldn't go out with him anymore. Damionjust needs to harnesshis anger, be patientand not over react.He needs tocome to the realization that not everyone wants to know more or listen. I learned so much from these experiences. We need totalk to people withpatience andlove and use different techniques to grab peoples attention"

Oklahoma City Oklahoma - Feb 2014

"We went over on Saturday for a lesson and his daughter was there who is hard core baptist. We were having a lovely conversation and decided to ask her a question, and she started going off on the Book of Mormon and the church. Ha she had just been waiting for her chance to start talking about it. Everything she said was just the run of the mill stuff that their pastors tell them to say. She started out pretty angry about our religion and especially that we were meeting with her dad, but slowly during the lesson her question were answered and she was able to feel the spirit. By the end of the lesson the spirit had completely taken over and we were all joking and laughing. She took a Book of Mormon and said she would read it. She said she wants to try and disprove it so that is awesome. If she can disprove it, she'll be the first person ever to do so. Ya we'll make a Mormon out of her."

Texas Ft. Worth - Feb 2014

"This week we set 5 baptismal dates and had all 5 of them at church. If yall could, please pray that they will keep their commitments.

Manuel Martinez is being baptized onFebruary 8, 2014.

Edna Martinez is being baptized onFebruary 8, 2014.

Brisa Martinez is being baptized onFebruary 8, 2014.

Ramona Sandoval is being baptized onFebruary 8, 2014.

Jesse Sandoval is being baptized on January 18, 2014.

They are all so excited to be baptized. I know that they have been prepared by the Lord. They love the restoration and the plan of salvation. They loved church and learned so much. They are super excited to continue investigating the church. My companion elder melville has been on his mission for 6 months now and has not had a baptism. so we are super excited to baptize them

Well the family that had 5 dates got offended at church and swore they were never coming back. Well. they have not seen the end of elder allen. We are still going over and they almost came to church yestarday. I am pretty bummed that they got offended but other than that they are doing great!!!"

Arizona Gilbert (All these are from the same obnoxious Sister Missionary) - Feb 2014

"We met a dear friend this week named Frank. He told us we were delusional and going to hell. I dont know who gave him the authority to make a judgment call on my eternal salvation, but hey, whatever. It was pretty great though because by the end of it, it was so sad and pathetic that Sister Caron and I were just laughing and joking with him. He didn't appreciate it. He said the Book of Mormon is not true because the gold plates are "who knows where." Later, when talking about the bible, he said the original manuscripts are no where to be found. I told him (with a big grin on my face) that they were probably up there with the gold plates. He didn't laugh. Even antis can't take away my whit;) Anyways, we wanted to have a respectful conversation and he wanted to destroy our faith so we just left. Afterwards, we got mauled by a dirty dog. That day was most excellent.

. . . . It made it so that we were 15 min late to one of our appointments with this less active woman who is notorious for lashing out at people for no reason. She has a lot of problems and unfortunately lashes them out on others. Well, we were late which fueled her hate fire. I told her the video we wanted to watch would only last 3 minutes then we would be out of her hair. Apparently that wasn't quick enough for her and she started yelling at us. Well, actually more specifically me. She called me the blonde molly mormon goody two shoes (i mean, it could be worse right?!) and said some other pretty rude and unwarranted things about me and then told us we were never welcome again at her house. It is hard because we met with Griselda the albanian last night and she doesn't want to get baptized because she can't commit to paying tithing. She can hardly pay bills as is. Part of me wanted to make an exception for her in her tough situation, but I was bold and told her if she pays it, she will see miracles. We had to show that we have faith in God and his promised blessings. So we're trying to get over that hurdle with her. She wants to get baptized to say she did it without the commitmentsÉ. ummÉ that's not exactly how it works. Right now we have no progressing investigators. No one holds appointments and no one does what we invite them to. Lame. Well, I know that blessings will come from the temple open house and we'll find people to teach, baptize, and seal!"

The advent of the internet has made the ugly and cringe worthy side of the Morg more accessible.

Of course we all know about the warts of church history that can't be hidden due to the information age, but the hitherto hidden goofiness of "morg-speak" (all those mormon catch phrases used to show one's personal superiority and righteousness) are now on display in these embarassingly candid missionary blogs.

Every one of these blogs is nothing short of amazing in its unvarnished view into the mormon mindset. I can't imagine any investigator reading a blog and thinking "yeah, I like the way they describe me."

The church is so clueless about PR it is laughable. - 12/10/2014 - by Rueben