On Missions and Tourism

When I was 19 I went on a two year mission for my church to Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, paid for entirely by me.  I spent two months in Sao Paulo at the CTM that my church operates there primarily learning to speak Portuguese. On one day a week we were able to go outside of the CTM and send emails home to family, and visit anything within about a two block radius of the CTM; which included a supermarket, a juice stand, and not much else.  Our rooms were divided between Brazilians who stayed for just over two weeks, and primarily Americans. At the end of the two months I went to the airport, got on a plane, and got to Porto Alegre. There I was assigned a companion and a geographical area of the city, or surrounding southern half of the state, which geographical area I would stay in for at least three months. We lived in apartments in the area in which we were serving, except for my first companion I served uniformly with Brazilians. 

There was one day a week where we had “off” to do our own laundry, write emails home, go shopping, and occasionally go see a tourist site, if it was close enough by for us to see it and get back to work in the evenings.

While we did plenty of service, that wasn’t our primary responsibility or goal. We were there to bring others to Christ, via baptism into the LDS church.  So we taught people or tried to find people who were willing to listen to us. Some of those that we taught did join our church, and some of those did lose family ties, social support, and have to make drastic changes in their lifestyle because they choose to and believed and knew that what we were teaching is true.  I still have intermittent contact with some of the people I taught or that were already members in the areas I served, and I know that my service made lasting impressions on them and for some greatly improved their lives, despite me not giving them any money, or anything like that.

The services at my church were essentially the same there as here as in every other place in the world I have ever attended them, though obviously the language spoken was different.  I did attend many other churches services while there, if someone invited us to attend then I would go, because we were constantly inviting others to attend our church and so I thought that only fair, not the usual state of affairs as far as I know.

I saw dogs mating in the street, children selling oranges and other items on the street, had cockroaches in my shower, which the hot water came via an electric heater attached by us to the shower head and usually sparked, I was assured by my companions that was a normal state of affairs. The larger grocery stores and banks had AC, and we never spent much time in those.  

There were lots of things that were hard, difficult, or different and I grew a lot, but I did not go on a mission to grow myself, I didn’t go so that I could be converted, nor was I forced to go by family or anyone else. I choose to go and I would have been happy serving anywhere in the world, I did not choose Brasil but to serve a mission.  I choose because I know from my own experience that the LDS church is true and that the gospel does make people happier and better, besides allowing them to be forgiven of their sins and return to live with God again. I can’t say anything about all missionaries from every sect, but from speaking with other missionaries and people serving in other churches in Brasil, that is also why they do what they do: because they know that what they do can change someone life for the better, more than giving them a meal to eat ever could. Which isn’t to say that charity is not also good, I participated in plenty of that and donate regularly to charities.

I would love to be able to go back to Brasil, to see all the sights and visit the places that I never did as a missionary.

I debate religion online because I enjoy it, and if someone did actually seek to know God via what I write then I would be thrilled. If I could convince everyone in the world to seek to know God, I would, but I have no idea if my commenting online has any sort of positive effect on anyone, other than the enjoyment and knowledge that I gain from doing so. I do not pretend to have a perfect knowledge of God, nor do I even know or believe that everything about the LDS church is perfect; since I am a part of the church and I know that I am not prefect then even in that most limited sense it must not be perfect, letting alone everything else.  What it does have is additional revelation, and the knowledge that everyone can seek to have their own revelations as well as the authority to receive more revelations from God via the prophets and priesthood, and most importantly certain ordinances which bind on heaven and on earth both ourselves and our families.