4 ms·

I was raised mormon and did my mormon mission 2007-2009 in Ukraine. We were not allowed to call anyone outside our family on christmas and mothers day, and we w

by xnyan 2y ago

I was raised mormon and did my mormon mission 2007-2009 in Ukraine. We were not allowed to call anyone outside our family on christmas and mothers day, and we were limited to 1 hour a week for email, family only. We were allowed to write handwritten letters to anyone, so that's how I maintained my relationship to my then friend now spouse, about 2-3 times a month as our sole form of communication. There are some very nice things about writing letters, but ultimately it makes communication more difficult compared to more modern options, and my experience letter writing left me much more appreciative of the alternatives we enjoy today.

callc 2y ago
Wow that’s a lot of restrictions on your communications. Restricting people’s communication and separating them friends and family is what cults often do. Was there a good reason for this? Like cost of international calls in the 2000s? Asking sincerely.
- demosthanos 2y ago
  Not OP, but also Mormon and served a mission with the same constraints. The biggest reason for this was that the two-year mission is seen as the one window of your life when you dedicate all of your time to serving God. Before that and after that you live normally, but during that window you're as close as the LDS church gets to being part of a religious order of monks. You theoretically chose to go out there (though to be fair there's enough peer and parental pressure for young men that some don't feel there was a choice), and you're with a companion who also chose to serve. The concern was that too much time spent on communicating with and dwelling on home would distract you and your companion from that singular focus and waste the preciously short time that you have before you come home and get caught up in normal life. Back in the 70s these constraints wouldn't have been a very big deal—most kids living away from home for college would have been in a similar boat, just less structured, and people expected communication across long distances to be slow and sporadic. Few would have paid for weekly long-distance calls in any case. But the church is pretty slow to change, so the rules stuck around longer than was likely healthy even as expectations around communication shifted with the advent of the internet. At some point in the last 10 years they realized that the slow communication pattern is actually not healthy for kids who grew up with expectations set by smart phones, and the formal restrictions are all but gone from what I understand. We video called with my brother every week in 2017-2019, and many missionaries these days are on Facebook or similar daily.
- throwaway918299 2y ago
  You answered your own question. Mormonism is a cult.
- xnyan 2y ago
  I'm no longer a mormon, and yes looking back I do think the treatment was culty.
- freedomben 2y ago
  In the case of cults, they are usually restricting your communication and separating you from friends and family because your friends and family will try to deconvert you and point out the insanity. In the Mormon case, the family is (usually) highly supportive of the mission and our strong members of the church. So I don't think this really lines up with cult-like behavior as much as it initially seems on the surface.

by xnyan 2y ago

callc 2y ago

Wow that’s a lot of restrictions on your communications. Restricting people’s communication and separating them friends and family is what cults often do. Was there a good reason for this? Like cost of international calls in the 2000s? Asking sincerely.

demosthanos 2y ago
Not OP, but also Mormon and served a mission with the same constraints. The biggest reason for this was that the two-year mission is seen as the one window of your life when you dedicate all of your time to serving God. Before that and after that you live normally, but during that window you're as close as the LDS church gets to being part of a religious order of monks. You theoretically chose to go out there (though to be fair there's enough peer and parental pressure for young men that some don't feel there was a choice), and you're with a companion who also chose to serve. The concern was that too much time spent on communicating with and dwelling on home would distract you and your companion from that singular focus and waste the preciously short time that you have before you come home and get caught up in normal life. Back in the 70s these constraints wouldn't have been a very big deal—most kids living away from home for college would have been in a similar boat, just less structured, and people expected communication across long distances to be slow and sporadic. Few would have paid for weekly long-distance calls in any case. But the church is pretty slow to change, so the rules stuck around longer than was likely healthy even as expectations around communication shifted with the advent of the internet. At some point in the last 10 years they realized that the slow communication pattern is actually not healthy for kids who grew up with expectations set by smart phones, and the formal restrictions are all but gone from what I understand. We video called with my brother every week in 2017-2019, and many missionaries these days are on Facebook or similar daily.
throwaway918299 2y ago
You answered your own question. Mormonism is a cult.
xnyan 2y ago
I'm no longer a mormon, and yes looking back I do think the treatment was culty.
freedomben 2y ago
In the case of cults, they are usually restricting your communication and separating you from friends and family because your friends and family will try to deconvert you and point out the insanity. In the Mormon case, the family is (usually) highly supportive of the mission and our strong members of the church. So I don't think this really lines up with cult-like behavior as much as it initially seems on the surface.