What I wish was different about my mission

When I first came home from my Spanish speaking mission to Salt Lake City, 2005-2007, I cherished the memories. I was definitely one of those people that called it "the best two years." I frequently told people I would have gladly done it all over again.

But as time has gone on, I have become jaded about many aspects of my mission. I don’t mean to attack anyone personally or to criticize anyone’s faith. But I feel like I must write my honest feelings and share them.

Special thanks to my girlfriend, Julia Marynowski, for her feedback on this post.

During my mission.

I was 19-21 on my mission, yet many people thought I was 15. Complete strangers didn’t even try to be polite about that. I would be grocery stopping at the store, and I’d hear something like this out of the blue, “OMG YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE 15 HAHAHAHAHA!!!!” That’s only a slight exaggeration. What made it surprising is that such taunts came from adults. And, to add insult to injury, they would add, “Sorry, it’s just that we’re used to bigger missionaries.” Wow, so you’re telling me I look scrawny? Thank you so much! That makes me feel better. 

[eye roll]

Would you tell an overweight person out of the blue that they need to lose a couple pounds? No. Most people know that’s rude. Then why did so many people in the great state of Utah think it was polite to tell a missionary that he looked like he was barely starting high school? In LDS culture, a mission is the pinnacle of a young man’s life. He fancies himself a hero like Indiana Jones. The last thing he wants to hear is that he looks like a baby, and especially not in such a rude way. 

Many people thought I was from Idaho. For some reason, almost every Spanish speaker confused “Ohio” with “Idaho.” I can count on one hand the number of Latinos who knew that Ohio was a separate state. Idaho and Ohio have nothing in common: their demographics are different, their cultures are different, their shapes are different, etc. The only thing they have in common is, in Spanish, their pronunciations sound vaguely familiar, but only if you’re unfamiliar with U.S. geography or if you’re not listening carefully. It frustrated me to no end that my state didn’t seem to exist to those people. It got so bad that I told them I was from New York. Even though New York is far away from Ohio, it was close enough to give them an idea, especially since most of them were very ignorant of U.S. geography.

I hated being forced to knock on doors. People criticized me for not having enough confidence to talk to complete strangers. It wasn’t that I was scared. It was that I resented pestering people. I didn’t blame them one little bit for being annoyed at us, because I would have felt the same way if I were in their shoes. 

I resent being obligated to follow an endless list of rules. Some were as arbitrary as waking up at 6:25 instead of 6:30. You know it was arbitrary because my mission president’s reasoning for it was simply, “Because we can.” Others that made no sense: listening to music in the car was not allowed (not even hymns) 6 days of the week, but it was ok on P-day, and you could listen to talks anytime. If safety was an issue, aren’t talks more distracting? And what made music dangerous 6 days of the week but suddenly it was safe on P-day? 

The culture of exact obedience to strict rules led to me being hard on myself for not following every single one of these rules. I eventually developed stress headaches. My mission president's solution was to probe into embarrassing details of private matters he had no business inquiring into. That interview did not help. If anything, it made my headaches worse. That was not an inspired decision on his part.

Those headaches disappeared after my mission.

Also, depriving a young man of virtually all contact with his family at such a tender age is just cruel. Even soldiers deployed to war zones get more contact with their families than I did. I was even so zealous that I turned down several opportunities to meet up with family members during my mission. I regret passing those opportunities up. 

After my mission.

On my mission, I had long hair parted down the middle  I now have a receding hairline and I keep my hair short. 

I thought I had a decent haircut on my mission. But apparently a lot of people thought it looked ugly. Once I changed haircuts, those people had no qualms openly belittling me for my old haircut. 

This is what I looked like back then:

September 19, 2006

October 12, 2006

Here is a classic example of the type of comments thought were ok to make about my hair:

Spanish: "Ajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja, ay perdon, i meant ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, ah no perdon, es que... ajajaja, es que... te ves bien chistoso kevinasio, con tu cabello asi, perdona, me emociono facilmente con los cambios de cabello, jiji, como va todo? estas enohio? o feliz? ajajaja, olvidalo, es que mis clases me ponen loco, saludos."

English: "Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh, sorry, i meant [sic] ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh, no, sorry, it's just that... ahahaha, it's just that... you look really funny with your hair like that, Kevin. Sorry, I easily get excited about changes in haircut, hehe. How is everything going? Are you in Ohio [play on words with "are you angry?"]? Or happy? Ahahaha, never mind. It's just that my classes are driving me crazy. Cheers."

That person wasn't the only one to express such sentiments.

It is a mystery to me why so many college-age adults thought such verbal abuse was acceptable, especially over the course of many years. It occurred consistently from 2007 until I asked on the mission Facebook page in 2013 for people to knock it off. The taunting finally stopped, but I am frustrated that not a single person has apologized. And the lack of apology wouldn’t frustrate me so much if ONE person could explain to me why they thought such behavior was OK. I just don't get it. What makes all those years of taunting especially painful is feeling like my mission was a waste because, apparently, people thought I was ugly that whole time 😥☹️😞

Plus, I look back at pictures of myself from those days, and I don’t think my haircut was all that bad. Sometimes when time goes by, you look at old pictures of yourself and you cringe at how you used to dress; but that’s not my experience with my haircut.

In my opinion, it’s like when someone loses weight: you don’t belittle them for how they used to be overweight. You praise them for weight loss and you tell them they look good now.

The rude comments about my hair weren't the only thing that made me mad about mission reunions.

For example, almost nobody showed up to the reunion that my then-wife and I put together, despite the impression being made that many people would show up to it. It hurt even more when I saw people from my mission posting pictures of themselves in the SLC area for General Conference that same weekend. So, they were in the area, but they couldn’t be bothered to swing by for a few minutes?

A common farewell at those reunions was, “Bring back those wives!” As if I weren’t experiencing enough pressure from BYU’s culture of marriage fever. 

One thing that always puzzled me were the reasons people didn’t attend reunions. There was often decreased attendance at reunions whenever there was a BYU football game. One guy went on a date, as if another evening were simply impossible. I guess people didn’t care that they would get the chance to see old friends that they hadn’t seen in years and might not get the chance to see again for many more years. :/

I visited my mission a couple times. Each time, I expected a pleasant trip down memory lane. I was surprised how many members had complete amnesia about who I was. I wouldn’t have expected them to remember my name. But many of them didn’t even recognize my face. It was especially disheartening that people who I had spent a significant amount of time with, or who had invited me to their homes multiple times for dinner, didn't remember anything about me. I guess our time together meant nothing to those people?

They're not the only ones who apparently didn't care.

One companion straight up told me he didn’t want to keep in touch.

I was with my MTC companion for 9 weeks. You would think people who such that much time together at a critical stage of an important period of life would never forget each other. I still remember his name, his family, what mission he served in, and other details about him. We wrote each other letters. But when we ran into each other at a BYU football game years later, he was clueless about who I was. He remembered after I jogged his memory. But I was sad that he completely blanked on who I was and the time we spent together. He didn't even remember what mission I was assigned to. His response was, “You have a better memory than I do.”

Parts of my mission I’m still grateful for.

My mission experience wasn't all bad. It was a critical part of my growth, and in many ways it shaped me into the person I am today. I appreciate my parents' sacrifice in providing that experience to me.

My favorite thing about my mission was learning the Spanish language and familiarizing myself with the Latin American culture. That is a gift that keeps on giving. It's fun how Julia (who also speaks Spanish) and I can have conversations in Spanish. My knowledge of Spanish and Latin America led me to get a degree in linguistics, a job translating for the military, and it will be immensely useful in my practice as a future immigration attorney. In fact, it is precisely because of my experience on my mission that I have such a keen interest in advocating for the immigrant community. When you see firsthand what they suffer, it naturally makes you want to do something about it. I feel like being an immigration lawyer is the best way to give those people a voice. My fluency in Spanish has also come in handy whenever I've traveled to Latin American countries (Mexico and Ecuador so far). Even when I went to Germany and Austria, I talked in Spanish to the Latinos and Spaniards there. I met a Spaniard named "Herr Alvarado" at a cafe. When I learned he was from Spain, I told him I speak Spanish better than German. He said, "Me, too."

I am grateful to the handful of friends who care enough to keep in touch, or who at least respond whenever I reach out.

Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed the MTC. A lot of people complain about the MTC. It's understandable, because the rules there are even more strict than regular mission rules, and many of the buildings are like sterile army barracks. But most of my memories there are positive. I enjoyed that having lots of time to read, work out, and getting three buffets a day.