Confessions of a Mormon Missionary: Part 2 MTC

In this part, she describes her time at the Mission Training Center.

My brother and I went to the Mission Training Center together, and that was a wonderful experience. That's basically where the brainwashing begins! For whatever reason, good or bad, you certainly, as a missionary, are brainwashed. And it needs to be that way because you can't watch television, you can't watch the news, you can't read magazines or read newspapers or books. You could not call home with the exception of Mother's Day or Christmas. You could write letters home once a week. In the Mission Training Center is where you're instructed to teach missionary discussions. They're very structured and very set. They didn't want each missionary teaching their own variation, so there were great efforts made to keep things systematic and presentable in an organized way. Those that went on foreign-speaking missions were there for two months because they also learned a language. Those that served in English-speaking missions were there for two or three weeks.

Being at the Mission Training Center was hard, but it was also a party, because there were so many people. In addition to my brother, there were, at the time that I went, a lot of my girlfriends that also went on missions. There were so many connections and so many people that I knew that were friends. The Mission Training Center was really a party compared to the rest of my mission. I also had a sort of boyfriend at the time, and he would visit me at the MTC. He would sneak me diet coke, and bring me roses and sweet notes. I felt like a princess.

I don't think there was ever a time before or afterwards where women went on missions in that amount. Recently, women have been discouraged from going on missions again. The Church doesn't come right out and say it. I suspect that with the decline in family that we're seeing in society, with divorce rates being so high, I think that the Church more than ever is wanting its focus on family and motherhood. Before the time that I went, women only went on missions if they were old and not married or had no chance of marriage. It just wasn't common. But maybe about the two or three years when I went and about the two or three years after, that time was a really great opportunity to be a young woman and to be a missionary.

My brother left the Mission Training Center two days before I did, and oh, I bawled. I was a complete running faucet for about three days. But by the time I left, I think I had pulled it together, and I think I was excited. My boyfriend met me at the airport and kissed me goodbye a little bit extensively. My parents were having a fit and I was loving it!