A Mission Finished Sooner
by David Robert Boyce
The lightning boomed, the type you could both hear and feel. It was the kind that happens at a key point in the movies or on TV, signifying ultimate divine displeasure.
Actually, the lightning may not have boomed but you couldn’t tell me that nothing happened--even if it was clear outside that night of late October or early November 1995.
One thing is certain: I did feel something, something so strong that I could almost hear it even if, in fact, I didn’t. It was as if heaven was saying loud and clear, “Enough!”
Basically I knew that my mission was over. At least my time in New Jersey was over. And although I spent the next few weeks wrestling with myself and the Lord, I knew that my time in New Jersey was over and that I was only delaying the inevitable--a return trip to Washington Terrace, Utah.
I used to look down on Mormon missionaries that didn’t serve their full two years, but then I became one.
Now for a little background: Young men in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are expected to serve a two-year proselyting mission which can start anytime between the ages of 19 and 26. We are expected to put off education, careers, and even dating and marriage for two years while we try to “spread the Word” six days a week from nine in the morning until nine at night. The seventh day of the week (a day other than Sunday) is what we call our P-day or Preparation Day where we spend the morning and afternoon doing chores like laundry, shopping, or writing home (we only get to call home twice a year). It is truly rewarding work, but the rewards come at a great price. It is challenging and, at times, heartbreaking, to say the least. It also brings out the best and worst from those involved, both the preachers and the preached to. And I went, not knowing the extent of mental challenges I faced, then and now.
I don’t remember when I first wanted to go on a mission. Both of my parents had served missions. Being raised in the Church, it was expected of me to go and I, wanting to do what was right, felt that I would go. Now, not all young men in my church go. In fact, of the young men who are able to go, less than half do so. For example, of the nine Mormon boys in my neighborhood, only three of us served missions. Out of my grandpa Boyce’s nine grandsons, only four of us served. Out of my grandpa Webster’s eight grandsons that are or were old enough, seven.
In the meantime, I had this plan about what I was going to do with my life. After graduating from high school, I was going to spend a year in college. Following that, I would go on a mission for two years where I would learn to speak a foreign language. After I got home, I would finish my B.A. (it would be a B.A. because of the foreign language I learned). Then I would get a high-paying job and start working on my master’s degree. Also, by that time, I would have gotten married and started to raise a family. Then after I finished my master’s, I would start working on my PhD.
Former Poet Laureate Billy Collins said that the answer to the age-old question of “how does one get God to laugh” was to “make a plan.” This is especially true when one doesn’t involve God in the process, no matter how well-intentioned one’s motives are.
Well, I went to college for a year but I didn’t fair well that spring quarter (or trimester). Oh well, I thought, I can make it up when I get home from my mission. In the meantime, I had learned that I was to serve my mission in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Great, I was going to learn Portuguese. That will take care of my foreign language. I entered the Missionary Training Center, July 13, 1994, with my sights set on the future.
The Missionary Training Center (or “MTC”) is sometimes called the “Mormon boot camp.” While they skip the “tearing down” part of military boot camp, it is very structured and very intense. Missionaries sent on a foreign-speaking mission spend eight weeks of intense religious and language training. Mornings between breakfast and lunch, afternoons between lunch and dinner, and evenings between dinner and bedtime are spent studying our language, studying our religion, and learning some of the other things we need to know to be a missionary.
Since I had decided to start my mission in the summer, I was there when the MTC was crowded. This would turn out to be a big stressor for me and would bring out things in me I was not aware of or that I thought I had gotten over.
In my teens, I was diagnosed by my medical doctor as having Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD. I took meds from seventh to twelfth grade and I did pretty well, for the most part. When I got out of high school, I thought that I was “cured” and I did not need to take meds any more. Well, I got into the MTC and I started not being able to handle the stress.
Now, I do not wish to be critical of my church, but it happens to the best of institutions (and my religion was no exception, on both counts). Decisions are sometimes made to make the day-to-day running of things easier administratively. Most people adjust, with or without complaint, and get along relatively “fine.” Unfortunately, there are a few of us who don’t and we’re the ones that a little more effort is needed to deal with. For me, it was the decision to have P-Day be the same day for a large number of Portuguese and Spanish-speaking missionaries in the MTC.
Getting up early, many of us would walk to the Provo Temple. We didn’t need to worry about crowding there because it is a big temple and it can handle a lot of people. In fact, I think there is only one other temple in all of the Church that handles more.
Back at the MTC, we did what missionaries need to do each week, wherever they are, and that is laundry. Now the actual act of doing laundry was not the problem, it was the fighting and jockeying for position to see who would get the next washer or dryer. I would later find out that it was a lot like driving to, from, and in New York City on any busy day, only worse.
This would anger and frustrate me a lot, to the point of tears or lashing out in what can only be described as a grown-up version of a temper tantrum.
My temper tantrums (or “episodes” as my family now calls them) starts off by feeling trapped between my needs or wants (or things that I think are needs but are actually wants), how I believe they have to be fulfilled, and the inability of the rest of the universe to fulfill them. I start to get irritable. I try to think of or find ways to fix the problem (but my scope may be limited). If I am unable to resolve those issues, I start acting out. I sometimes start cursing (I know that this would not mean a whole lot for some like, say, Dennis Leary, but for me it is a big thing). I also start lashing out verbally at the people or institutions (God is not exempt, regretfully) who I believe are responsible for putting me into that trap. I yell and holler usually until I run out of steam or, once in a while, I grasp of a way to fix the problem.
Even if I do find a way to fix the problem, I still have to do some “damage control.” This involves apologizing to the people involved. Sometimes I am lucky and the people or institutions didn’t hear what I said and I might need to apologize to them (sometimes I do anyway).
As the days and weeks wore on, the ultra-rigid environment wore on me and I experienced more tantrums. Since my tantrums involved what they termed to be swearing, this really got the attention of the staff at the MTC. I was sent to talk with a counselor or clinician in the MTC. They said that instead of ADD, what I had was Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or OCD and they started to prescribe a different type of medication to me.
One time, one of my Portuguese teachers in the MTC shared a story in our class about a man called Poco João (or “Little John”).
Poco João (pronounced “Zhwow”) was a good man who did everything the Lord asked him to do. There was a thing that Poco João lacked and that was muscles. However, one day, the Lord asked Poco João to start moving this big rock that was in his front yard. So, being the obedient man that he was, Poco João tried to do what the Lord wanted him to do.
Everyday, he would try to push at the rock. Every day, it wouldn’t budge.
This happened for a long time until finally the Lord asked Poco João to stop trying to move the rock. Poco João was understandably a little frustrated. He asked the Lord why He had him do this if, in the end, Poco João didn’t need to do it after all. Poco João said that he could have been doing other things that would probably be more beneficial. The Lord asked Poco João to look at himself now. Where once Poco João was this small puny guy, now, he was built up and strong with lots of muscles. What the Lord really wanted was for Poco João to get stronger.
I would later find out how much like Poco João I was.
Well, it didn’t get much better for me. Of course, not being faithful in taking my meds didn’t help.Anyway, after a total of seven and a half weeks in the MTC, seven and a half weeks of my getting frustrated with the long lines at the laundry and the cafeteria, having my tantrums (and not always taking my meds), I was sent home on a medical leave. I don’t remember much of that day other than my dad cursing at the traffic light because, after cycling through the lights at that intersection a couple of times, it still did not give him the green arrow he needed to turn left out of the MTC.
When I got home, I was readjusted to my old meds and started working with the local missionaries. It went along fine during the time I was home. We had hoped that I would eventually go to Brazil. God had other plans.
My parents knew before I did that instead of going to Brazil, I would go somewhere in the United States (or “stateside” as we called it). One afternoon, secretly, and against my dad’s wishes, my mom took me out to an as-of-yet-undeveloped part of Washington Terrace. You could see the cows (or Moos as my mom called them) off in the distance, but, thankfully, you couldn’t smell them. What you could smell was the fresh smell of Utah prairie grasses at the edge of suburbia. There was a reason why my mom took me out here, I thought, and I may have felt something in the pit of my stomach. My mom explained to me that Salt Lake (as we called Church headquarters) was going to send me somewhere stateside. I was devastated. I had wanted to serve a foreign mission and now it turned out I was going stateside. I erupted. I took off my missionary name tag and threw it into the air. I yelled out a lot of angry things. Some of them may have been at God.
After the eruption of (mount) Elder Boyce had died down (all male missionaries are called by the title of “Elder”), I was mournful because of my actions and ready to accept the fact that I would be going stateside. Later on, as I learned, there was nothing wrong with going stateside and, in fact, there were many advantages, but perhaps I did not think so at that time.
I can’t remember if it was later that day or in the week, but there was a conference held with my mom, my dad, my bishop, my stake president (who presides over a collection of wards or congregations known as a “stake”), and me. There I got the official word. Maybe it was good that my mom had told me previously so that I did not blow up in front of my church leaders. The two local missionaries I was working with were fine with that. After all, they had been sent stateside (one was from Alaska and one was from Missouri). One day after doing some missionary work, the two other Elders and I returned to their apartment and there was a message on the machine stating that I was assigned to the New Jersey Morristown Mission (missions are usually called by the country or state first, followed by the city). They were excited for me. After coming back another time, we found out I was going soon.
For going to Brazil, there are things I would have needed for there, that I would not need for going to New Jersey, and vice versa. For instance, for Brazil I would need one suit which I would use for the MTC, going down to Brazil, and coming back home. Since New Jersey was known for having, at times, a colder climate and I would need, among other things, another suit.
My family and I hurried and packed my stuff together and I was sent on a flight to New Jersey. It was night when I landed at the Newark International Airport (now called Newark Liberty International Airport). Boyd Poulton (or President Poulton, as he was called then) who presided over the mission was at the airport with a young missionary who was one of his assistants by the name of Elder G. (I abbreviated his last name since I haven’t checked with him). They took me to the mission home in Morris Plains and handed me over to a couple of missionaries that I would stay with for the next few days until they figured out where to put me (not only was it unexpected and sudden for me, it was also unexpected and sudden...and welcome for them) until they had a place for me to stay.
Now a word or two about how missionaries are organized: I supposed that the most basic unit of a mission is the individual missionary. Missionaries are put into groups of missionaries called “companionships.” A companionship will consist of two or three young single men, two or three single women, or an older married couple. Each companionship is responsible for a certain geographic or linguistic area. Two or more companionships are organized into a “district” with a district leader presiding. One or more districts are organized into what is called a “zone” with a zone leader presiding. The zones are what comprise each “mission” with a mission president presiding. To help him, the mission president has “counselors” which are older, usually married, men; his “assistants” or “A.P.’s” which are young men; and office missionaries. Assignments, responsibilities, and positions change over time especially with the young missionaries. I spent as much as six months assigned to one area and as little as two weeks assigned to another area. Changes usually occur, if they occur, once a month at a time called “transfers,” but even that is not set in stone.
Each missionary is required to stay with another missionary (usually their “companion”) 24/7. Exceptions include married couples or the rare case where there is an even number of one gender and an odd number of the other gender. This is to protect the missionaries from other people and each other.
I would end up spending the next thirteen months in and around New Jersey. I had some good companions. I had some trying companions. I had some good and trying companions. (Sometimes, I think I was the trying companion.) We worked in suburbs, inner cities, and countryside. We preached to black people, white people, Jewish people, people of Latin American descent who preferred to speak English (there were Spanish-speaking missionaries there), Indians from India, and others (I once knocked on the door of a family from Syria who spoke Aramaic or the language of Jesus). We met people from various religions including other Christian sects, Black Muslims, non-black Muslims, various sects of Judaism, and some “eastern” religions. We actually managed to have some success as missionaries. (Who knew that there was a whole other country within the borders of the United States of America?)
My last area was in a congregation known as the Scotch Plains Ward. We lived in half of an attic of an old Victorian mansion in North Plainfield. That was my favorite area. It was a nice mixture of inner city and suburb.
Contrary to what we had thought back in Utah, I was not over my mental problems. From time to time, I still had tantrums (especially when we would go knocking on doors or “tracting”). I would also sulk. Several times I said that I wanted to go home (I found out that the wanting to go home was normal). I would bang my head on door frames. In spite of that, I really wanted to do the right thing and President Poulton and my companions encouraged me to stay.
As I said, I had been assigned to an area in the Scotch Plains Ward. We, as well as the whole mission, were doing pretty good. I had even started to be regular in writing home and I took pride in this. We were also being successful.
Then one P-day in late October or early November of 1995, we (I, my companion, and the other missionaries in our apartment) decided to go over to the Woodbridge Center Mall in Woodbridge, New Jersey. While this was out of our areas, it was within our district and we got permission from our district leader. We had a good time, but by the time we were through, it was time to start proselyting again. Feeling trapped by my desire to please my parents by writing home, by my desire to be consistent in writing home, by my feeling guilty about not using my time to write home, by my feeling guilty about enjoying our trip to the mall, by the fact that we needed to proselyte, by my companion insisting that do so, and by the fact that there are only so many hours in the day, I had another tantrum.
That was a doozey. I don’t remember much about it other than what led up to it and that by the time I was through ranting and raving, I was exhausted. I just wanted to be alone. Lying on my bed, I told my companion that I wanted to be alone (even though I knew deep inside that that was not a viable option, missionary-wise). He, Elder H3 (he was the third companion I had whose last name started with “H”), got out his copy of the missionary rule book (or “white bible” as we called it) and started reading aloud the rules to me. He may have been well-intentioned but that was NOT what I needed at the time. I just wanted him to be quiet so I could rest and recuperate from the tantrum I had.
He continued reading it aloud.
I tried to tell him to be quiet and that I just needed some time to recuperate.
He continued reading the rules to me.
Although what was usually the main part of the tantrum was over, I was still not totally in my right mind. Worse yet, he did not believe what I said and he kept on reading. I wanted him to stop.
Our apartment had a baseball bat. I started threatening him with it. I really didn’t want to hurt him, I just wanted him to shut up.
He continued to read the mission rules to me.
I started tapping him on the shoulder with the bat.
He wouldn’t shut up.
I started tapping harder.
He wouldn’t shut up.
Not only did I tap harder, I started yelling every disgusting insult and innuendo I could think of (or had, up to that time, kept inside). Finally “Ka boom!” my soul heard.
I don’t know how hard I was hitting my companion before he finally took the bat from me and threw it out the window. I know that I was not hitting as hard as I could and that he, in no wise, wanted to see a doctor. (My therapist recently asked if I left a mark, to which I replied that I didn’t know.) Even if I hadn’t left a mark, I knew that I had offended my God’s sacred trust in me, one of His servants. There was obviously going to be no proselyting that night.
The next morning, I had a little “chat” with President Poulton. I don’t remember everything he said (and I am not so sure I want to) but I do remember feeling the wrath of God like I have never felt. He started asking me if I wanted to go home as if he felt that that was a viable option. I suppose that I never really wanted to go home, at least not prematurely. I had a cousin that, while serving in France, up and decided that he wanted to go home early and left. Missionaries are sometimes sent home early for various reasons, but I did not want to go home prematurely. I just wanted to escape the struggle, within and without.
I would end up spending about three more weeks in New Jersey. I remember that as being the worst part of my whole mission. I just couldn’t get into the Spirit or “Groove.” Nothing seemed to work right. I was fighting something inside of me that was telling me to go home. Part of why I stayed as long as I did was pride, part was the fact that I had grown to love New Jersey (even Newark).
One night, I couldn’t fall asleep, I felt like I was in the deep dark pit of despair. I started thinking about music I had performed that told about another man’s deeper struggle. I started singing to myself some of the more depressing songs. Then I started singing some of the happier songs. I had also started going through and organizing my stuff, of which there was a lot. (Like my dad, I am a packrat.) For the first time in a few weeks, I started feeling better. That next morning, I got another call from President: I was going home on what would be my second medical leave.
When I got home again, I started seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist. They had decided that I had, in fact, OCD and started treating me for it. I was a little upset because I had bought into the whole “I’m special because I have ADD” thing. Also, I was scared of OCD.
As for returning to New Jersey, I thought that I was going to do that. The people in my mission had hoped I would do so, but in the end it was decided to have me released from missionary service with an honorable medical release. Including my time in the MTC, Jersey, and both medical leaves, I had spent eighteen months as a missionary.
To this day, I sometimes still struggle with what happened on my mission, though not as much now. I still struggle with my anger attacks or tantrums. At this point, the unofficial diagnosis is a form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. We are currently trying to get an official diagnosis.
There have also been other changes in my life’s plan. I still am single. I am living with my parents in Arizona. I never got the high-paying job I thought I would get after getting my B.S. (not B.A.) in Computer Science. I am now on Social Security Disability. I had been accepted to graduate school in New Jersey but that fell through.
However, I am working on another bachelor’s degree. I will try to get into grad school at NAU in creative writing. Also, I know that there are some M.F.A. programs in New Jersey (including a new one at Rutgers-Newark) that I might try for in a few years. Also, a friend I met here in Arizona, who has a similar set of mental illnesses, has gone on a mission. Any guesses where? The New Jersey Morristown Mission.