Called to Prostitute?

 Prostitution is the practice or business of engaging in sexual activity for payment. This practice is mostly known among women as they are often the more marginalized in the society who hardly own property as a means of livelihood and self sustenance. It is often called commercial sex work, hooking or sexual services. I don't thing that human services fits into this description. Prostitution is as old as man. It's practised by the ancients but nowhere has it been viewed as a noble profession. Most prostitutes practised at night because the darkness provided a covering that allowed them great autonomy and authority. It is not to seen among moralists - people who preach or profess certain moral attitudes, creeds or lifestyle. In going to serve a mission with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had not agreed to prostitute nor did I engage in any business that would describe me as a prostitute. However, that missionary experience brought me to the conclusion that in professing that faith I had prostituted myself. I was a graduate of a reputable university and in good social standing. I had just completed the National Youth Service Corps and as a member of that religion, I decided that it was okay to engage in the volunteer missionary work. I had two siblings, both male who had done the service. I had no idea what their lives were as missionaries - I didn't live it with them I served in the United States of America. Both of them served in different places in Nigeria.

Before we left on the mission, prospective missionaries were asked to fill out medical forms and do medical checkup to get them ready for the endeavour. I was in Ibadan and my tests and check up were don over there. As soon as I rounded off the compulsory NYSC, I got me ready to go on the mission, which could take place anywhere in the world. There was no active lobbying to observe my mission in the United States of America. There were talks about it, both with the white and black leaders in Nigeria. However, I affirmed that I need to do a mission as what was termed 'a patriarchal blessing' had demanded it. I wasn't aware of any Church  politics that took gold diggers abroad with the sponsorship of their sugar daddies. I had no idea that a mission was a trap, a hellhole of sorts. That the Nigerians who engaged in it were considered misfit, dimwit, hungry, naive, ignorant, unemployed, imbecilic and idiotic people who needed rehabilitation. While I didn't think that it was a bad way to put one's belief into perspective I didn't realize that it would frame the rest of my existence. But what was the Church's stance on missionary work?

Primarily, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints required young male members in good standing from the age of 19 and now 18 to go on such missions. They are the young men you see with black badges carrying small bags and wearing white shirts and dark trousers. They are coerced into serving and are taken to a place called the Missionary Training Centre. My training was done in Provo, Utah. I became close associates with white men and women. I became companions with a white woman from Mesa, Arizona, USA. It was clear from the MTC that I had made the worst decision of my life. I was asked to take a certain medication 'to aid my stomach to tolerate white food.' I was hounded as if I had got a cheap visa into Heaven. I had no privacy, watched through cameras and by human beings. Till date, it appears to have become an enjoyable pastime of Mormons to mind my business. Everybody is employed in the business of watching me, family, neighbours and even colleagues. It must be a lucrative business trying to become an American while resident in Nigeria. Shameless idiots. Yes, I'm in Nigeria. Who knows when I'll be flying off to become an American?

If I hadn't gone on that ill-fated mission, what could have been my life. I don't know but I can make a guess. I would have got a job perhaps teaching since a Bachelor of Arts in Igbo had equipped me to teach or gone around looking for a job in a bank, since I could do accounting and bookkeeping. I wouldn't know but it could have been without the complications of encountering other jobless people who had 18 months to spare and talk about Joseph Smith's fable (called a vision) of seeing God and Jesus Christ. The most disheartening part was wondering what I was doing preaching to a people who ridiculed their own faith. I could be doing something else than being enemies with the whole world. Being a graduate, I wasn't 'African' enough. I wasn't smiling, too grateful to be in the USA than anywhere else in the world, eating pizza and Subway and sharing bedrooms with angels - talking about the while women in our shared apartments. I wasn't born into great privilege but my modest existence allowed great grace in appreciating the little things of life and not getting bought over by the great riches of the world. I'm not greedy; I'm merely ambitious. If you've got a dictionary look up both words and know where I fit in. I don't seek what doesn't belong to me. I don't count on other people's downfall as the pivot to my own greatness. There was no competition that I won in going abroad to do my own mission. In abroad I mean as far away as the USA. Many did their own missions in Ghana, South Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone, even in Kenya not to mention Cote d'Ivoire. So, why was the USA causing so much envy? What did I gain from it? Seeing snow for the first time? Yes, but what was that in comparison to the life I had left unattended to? I got paid $136 every three weeks in Salt Lake City, Utah and $140 every month in Houston, Texas. What was that in comparison the salary of a graduate of a Nigerian university within the 2:1 aggregate? I wasn't in Heaven, people. I was called to give tours from dawn to dusk. I filled out duties when there were special tours for other missionaries to give tours to their own nationals. I don't know what I gained from being on Temple Square. Even the certificate I got at the end of the day had a misspelling of my name. Back off, people!

I had the unfortunate fate of sharing toilet facilities with over 40 women from over 30 nationalities and nations, in 18 months. That's too much intimate exposure, people. Was that your idea of heaven? I gained weight from standing from 8:00am to close of work at 8:pm, having two thirty minute breaks each day. Was that all I had to be hounded like a felon for? I had relative hounding me to run away from the mission. To where? With what arrangement? I'm still the dullard today, because I didn't pull that off. Yet, these are the same people planting spies in my life till date. They are the unofficial FBI in my life. 

To be continued....