I posted this on another forum a couple of days ago and it got a good response. Thought y'all might like to read it here.
--Wag--
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I wasn't going to respond to this thread but something M. said suggests that this story might be appropriate here.
My companion and I (I had been on my mission about three months) were teaching a referral. The man was referred by his Mormon wife. She had been inactive for many years but showed up at church one day, at the wrong ward and asked to have the missionaries come and teach her disabled husband. She was white, he was black.
So, we show up a few days later and she invites us in. She was on her way to work and left with a smile and a wave. We sat down with Bob. Yup, that was his name. The house reeked. It was filthy dirty from top to bottom, end to end. Very sad. Bob was, in fact, disabled. We sat there and tried to have a conversation with him. It was impossible, really, but we were able to make him smile a couple of times.
What was his problem, you ask? Bob was an alcoholic. The most extreme case I've ever even heard of, much less seen and I hope to never see it again. I suspect his wife wanted him to get off the booze and figured the Mormon Boys would be especially able to make it happen.
Bob was so badly incapacitated by his alcoholism he couldn't move from his bed. Ever. He had a walker by the bed but he couldn't even use that. Many was the time, we had to sit there and watch Bob sit on the edge of his bed and relieve himself into a bed pan. Frequently, he would miss. He was embarrassed just as much as we were. Bob was never NOT drunk. And I mean, slobbering on himself drunk. 24/7. I kid you not. Seemed to have a good heart but he was difficult to understand for the most part.
My companion, however, was a good guy. Misguided, but a good guy. He felt we could help and he insisted that we go over there every other day. I should confess, we taught a lot of "discussions" to Bob in order to make the mission number counters happy. He would sit there and listen but since we were virtually incapable of talking about anything else anyway, we just ran discussions through his addled brain. Just as well. We generally didn't have much else to do during the day anyway. My companion was constantly trying to figure out how to get Bob to be able to go to church with us. The bedpan was a permanent blockade to that effort, thankfully. Can you imagine him whipping it out during Sacrament Meeting?
One day as we were "teaching" Bob he seemed a little more lucid than usual. My companion, good-hearted fellow that he was, felt "inspired" to give Bob a blessing of healing. We offered but Bob wanted to pray first so we did. My companion prayed, then I prayed, then Bob prayed. Halfway through, he was crying hard and totally emotional. We started to cry with him. We all had a very powerful emotional experience which we promptly labelled "the spirit" for Bob's edification, we being the wisest of the three of us.
Then we gave him a blessing of healing. I annointed and my companion did the honors. Among other things, he pronounced him "healed."
Afterward, Bob, though still fairly sauced, said he didn't want any more booze ever again. We were internally in celebration mode. Bob told us to dump all the booze into the sink which we promptly did while he watched. Being a virgin to booze, the smell was nearly enough to get me drunk! Maybe I was just giddy over the most "spiritual" experience I had ever had in my life. Who knows. We cleaned out the fridge, the cupboards; everything. No booze was left in the house when we were done. Bob even dug out a couple of bottles from under his pillow and said there was one under the mattress he couldn't get. To his credit, there were no other bottles in the bed. We checked.
We left after a couple more hours and made sure Bob had water and juice close at hand. Food as well. He was elated. We were elated. I have little doubt that I wrote about this in my mission journal. I'll have to look when I get home.
The next day, we went over there and for cryin' out loud, Bob was sober still! His wife was there. She was in tears and thanked us and praised god. We all prayed. We started over with the discussions with Bob. His wife went to work. We stayed for a couple of hours. Turns out, Bob was a pretty cool guy and we actually carried on a great conversation with him.
For the next few days, we were at Bob's house, guaranteed, every day. Bob's health improved dramatically and he hadn't used the bed pan in a couple days, at least, not while we were there. We were looking forward to the holy grail of taking him to church. Bob committed to baptism. All was going according to plan. Couldn't have had a more picture-perfect story. He was managing to get around with his walker by himself a little bit for the first time in years. The miracle couldn't be denied. I was convinced that the Mormon church MUST have been true. It was the reason I had gone on a mission.
For several days in a row, we hadn't run into his wife. Her work schedule had changed or we were just getting there later and kept missing her. I don't recall for certain.
One day, after about 10 days, we showed up at the house and Bob was pi$$-drunk. We were astounded. What could possibly have gone wrong? It was the most depressing thing I had seen in my life. From the highest hill on the roller coaster of emotion to the very bottom of the most bottomless pit of depression. We couldn't get anything out of Bob and it was useless to talk to him. He was toasted.
Later, the next Sunday, I believe, the bishop was able to find out what had happened. His wife, for whatever reason, couldn't bear to lose control of her husband in this fashion. For some reason, we think she liked being his boss and making sure she kept him in prison in his bed, unable to move on his own. The previous evening, she had come home with two or three cheap bottles of rot gut whiskey and proceeded to not only get Bob all liquored up but got hammered herself. Then, she took away all his juice and water and food from off the bedstand and left him with nothing but a couple of bottles of booze. Since we hadn't showed up until later in the afternoon, he had had all day to do nothing but be thirsty and hungry with nothing to drink but the bottles by the bed while his wife went to work. I suspect it's a wonder he hadn't died by the time we got there.
The bishop asked us not to go back and that he would send people to do what they could for Bob. We were devastated. To this day, whenever I think of Bob, I wonder if he would have become a Mormon to the end of his days because of "us boys."
A miracle happened in that house. Not from god, I have no doubt. But a lost man found comfort in the friendship of a couple of wet-behind-the-ears Mormon kids and saw a chance at a better life. He had healed himself, I have no doubt.
He was then soundly and decisively destroyed by his evil wife. I have little doubt that Bob didn't survive long after that. His poor liver couldn't have stood the strain. But we never found out.
Do I regret my mission? In some ways, yes. Even if we had been able to get Bob completely off the booze and made him Mormon in the process, I have to believe I would be happy if he were still Mormon these 20 years later. I'd be happy that he had found a means to get his life back from the bottle that stole it from him. I'm sad now that such was not to be. He's probably the only contact we ever made which I still think about with a touch of fondness and sadness at the same time.
There were others who changed their lives, patched up their marriages, began to live more productive lives because we were there to touch them and make them feel like someone cared.
Y'know what, though? I think I've done MORE good for people now that I've gotten out of Mormonism. I've been instrumental in guiding people to the help they have needed for their various problems and in getting out of Mormonism. We all have. We just need to remember that.
Recently, I heard a quote which goes something like, "People without direction in their lives are very susceptible to cults." I think back on my mission and I fealize that is very likely true. We seldom converted or even spoke to people unless they were truly floating along without direction in the stream of life. Every one of them. I don't feel too bad about that now. At least they have SOMEthing, assuming they're still active. I've lost touch with many of them. I hope that if they are still active they are still happy.
One of the families I remember is a complex issue. The bad news is, one girl got married in the temple and had eight kids before she caught her RM husband having an affair with her best friend. THAT is a tragedy I wish I could have prevented by not baptizing her.
Sometimes, I wish I hadn't done the mission. But looking back, I have to say that I'm not going to worry too much about it. It's in the past and I can't go back and live the lives for people that they could have lived. All I can do is make sure that from this point forward, I can assist others in getting over their issues, assuming they want it. I just won't be cramming it self-righteously down their throats.
--Wag--
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