Why Go on a Mission?

 

 mission call

‘I hope the call me on a mission? When I’ve grown a foot or two?’ I haven’t forgotten the primary song that I sang many years ago growing up and attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Aba (without the question marks, though). It’s contained in the children’s song book and probably the kids still sing it. I hadn’t known the difference between going to church and living the tenets of any faith. Nobody is plastered with perfection but there’s a difference between error and perversion. I went on a mission after my 25th birthday. Female missionaries were allowed to go on a mission after their twenty first birthdays while the males could go after their 19th birthday or thereabouts. Many LDS young people have gone on a mission. While I attended church, I listened to many young men and a few young women give their farewell speech or what’s called a Testimony in Mormon/LDS lingo in Aba, Abia State, Nigeria.  Recent events and my own personal experience have led me to write this blog post, Why Go on a Mission. Is   missionary work a sport or a call? Why a sport? Why a call?

What is a Mission?

A mission was believed to be a time away from family, friends and basic comforts. It has remained, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a time for young people to fulfill childhood aspirations away from home.  There are several definitions of the word, mission. Some of them include, ‘a set of tasks that fulfill a purpose or duty; an assignment set by an employer,’ ‘religious evangelism,’ etc. I believe the LDS Church’s version must be the last one that is religious evangelism. Missions were associated with call rather than sport. I love using the dictionary even though I might offend some of my readers. But I would rather err for being effusive than assuming that my readers understand my thesis or drift.

Who is a Missionary?

A person who travels attempting to spread a religion or creed or a religious messenger is called a missionary. In another context, it’s a common position for undertaking sexual intercourse. But this isn’t the definition we seek as we are looking for who and not what. As a messenger, a missionary is forget himself/herself and go to work.

Missionary Work: Sport or Call?

Do you recall inter-house sports of many years ago? When children and youth competed for prizes? Missionary work is not a sporting event. Do you recall beauty pageants that brought fine faces and legs on stage? Missionary work isn’t one of those – beauty wasn’t the focus of missions to the best of my knowledge. Missionary work has never been associated with sport. It’s tedium. It’s so hard that even a prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was reported to have written home to complain of his hardship. His father’s reply and counsel to him in a letter was, ‘Forget yourself and go to work.’ You know who? If you went on a mission to TSM – Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission you would know who: Gordon B. Hinckley. So, what brought sport to missionary work?

Missionary Work as a Call

Is missionary work a call(ing)? If so, what call? If yes, whose call? If so, why did some if not many missionaries and mission presidents treat it with such levity?  I have no sympathy criticizing the Mormon/LDS faith so much even after identifying with them for so long. I didn’t think that missionary work was for me, since childhood. But a patriarchal blessing, a known Mormon guidance and counseling exercise got me thinking about it. I went for my blessing when I was already an undergraduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 2000. I didn’t like that I had to use my formal education to preach the gospel. But I decided that if it was what I was to do, I would do it after my studies and the NYSC. Do you recall that song at the beginning of the post? I was hoping to grow a foot or two education wise. Let me recount to you how I got my mission call to Utah, signed with the electronic signature of Gordon B. Hinckley, in 2005.

It was natural for me to continue through a career trajectory. I wasn’t doing badly in my studies. I was working hard to retain my second class upper aggregate and if possible inch towards first class. But I was very realistic about getting sound education first and foremost. I was self-guided with my tertiary education and even for my NYSC and later the decision to go on a mission. My decision to go on a mission eventually materialized when I was observing the NYSC in Ibadan, Oyo State. While I taught at Air Force Comprehensive School, Ibadan, my roommate and I attended a neighbourhood church at Lalupon. It was a service in Yoruba, which I didn’t quite understand. After a few services, we decided to switch churches. We went to a Redeemed Christian Church of God Church (RCCG) that we found on our way to and from the Community Development Services at Lagelu Lalupon Secretariat. Mabel Ezeobi and I attended this particular branch of RCCG until a man I was dating, a military officer, named Peter Garba asked me to discontinue my worship at that church. He was going to be attending that church and since we weren’t married, it was going to be all gossip about us. I refused to heed his suggestion and told him that he was the one who could drive out to town to attend another branch of RCCG, if he insisted on attending one. He told me that his work required him to worship around that area and that I was a mere corps member and didn’t have a permanent job. Imagine. I became furious and decided to search out any LDS Church in the vicinity. This was hope I returned to normal worship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I wasn’t in enmity with the LDS Church. It was the only church that I attended in Ibadan while I attended the University. It was my ‘family’ church, that is, the church members of my immediate family attended in Aba, Abia State. It was, however, quite some distance to travel from Ile Igbon to Ijokondo, near Eleyele, (Ibadan Polytechnic area) where I attended my last church meeting in Ibadan before the NYSC. Anyway, having found the Sawmill branch as the closest I decided to do church there and leave Peter Garba and his wiles and madness alone. My roommate began to spend her weekend at Challenge, Ibadan at one Mama Chioma’s house. This woman and her husband would often bring her back to the compound some weekends. Of course, I never went anywhere with here outside Lagelu to determine if she actually went to her friend’s place as she said. She cooked meals and brought such home each weekend. I didn’t know I was being bribed. I actually wasn’t happy with her stay in the compound as she was clearly above the age of service. But she indicated hardship as her reason for doing the NYSC when she was past the age of participation and I let sleeping dogs lie. After all, I didn’t give her uniform to her. If she got those officially and nobody scrutinized her age, then I was probably calling attention to myself needlessly. Nigeria was a disappointment at AFCS, Ibadan in 2004 and 2005 owing to the NYSC.

At Sawmill branch of the LDS Church in 2005, I noticed the sister missionaries. There was one Inyang and her ‘apostate’ companion. They were a delightsome duo. I remembered my patriarchal blessing and thought; perhaps the mission would better succeed the NYSC. I interviewed Inyang about her experiences with missionary work. She told me that it was a difficult ordeal but she was getting through with hers. I thought seriously about going and felt that I would go if I completed my NYSC. But I wasn’t even sure that it was the right thing to do. I grew up in Aba, where there were no female missionaries. The only women missionaries left from my place of worship called a ward to other places. There were several of them and each one returned to their families before they moved to other things. It was with such notion that I decided that I could trust my hunch to consider a mission after the NYSC. I didn’t like the culture at AFCS, Ibadan and didn’t know what other options were available to me. I had never visited the missionaries in their apartments. So, there was no telling if the female missionaries were harlots or missionaries. I had voted them the former than the latter. The latter option was never an option as I didn’t know what space or creed in that allowed for such excesses. The Articles of Faith of the church would forbid it.

I traveled to Lagos State on a break and decided to attend the LDS Church as was often my habit during my undergraduate days. I often attended the Church of Christ with my cousin’s family when I visited with them. Sometimes I would attend the LDS Church too and on such occasions I went either to the Festac place of worship or the Okokomaiko one. This time, I decided to attend the one at Okokomaiko. It was here that I met with the bishop who doubled as a travel coordinator with the LDS Church. He was called Mr Marcus Ogbonna. I wasn’t very happy with the outcome of the NYSC. Truly, I regretted ‘fixing’ the posting, which I believed might have brought me to a crazy military compound, which could have been a harem than a workplace. I complained to Mr Ogbonna who sympathized with me. I told him that I was thinking of going on mission but it had been a difficult decision. I told him that I had committed a grievous sin against God and needed forgiveness. He assured me that if I was sincere that God would forgive me. I told him my misgivings with going on a mission were apprehension over my posting. AFCS was enough said. He assured me that posting could be to anywhere including the USA. I replied in disbelief. I had never that anybody had gone to the USA. I knew a few from Aba who were called to the Accra, Ghana mission but none to the United States of America. He informed me that two women were already in the USA, one in Utah and the other in Washington D.C. area. I knew none of the women. I discovered from him that they were residents of Abeokuta and Abuja, respectively. He told me that his wife (Anderson Okereke’s sister) had served a mission and that was the only reason he married her. They wedded in the LDS Church at York Street in Aba, Abia State. So, missionary work would make a better wife of me? Really? OK o.

I left Lagos for Ibadan and began to worry about going on a mission. I spoke to the branch president of Ibadan 2nd branch about going on a mission. After an interview, he gave a form to me. He told me that sometimes it was better to wait for six months to let the dust settle after a deep soul search to make the decision. I wasn’t sure that I had time on my hands. I assured him that my intent was sincere and I was giving it full consideration. I went away with the form and filled it out. I shared my plans with my mother. I called her on the phone to tell her. She told me that it was a good plan of I had given it due consideration. I submitted the form to the mission president Mr Taylor Harper who interviewed me as was the routine and practice of LDS Church leaders. He asked me about my family welfare and even wealth. I informed me that the decision was solely mine and that my parents couldn’t fund my mission. I left for AFCS and in due course I shared my plan with Peter Garba whom I had stopped seeing at the time. I also told a few others like Mrs Mabel Ezeobi. She was the only one who supported the mission idea. She told me that nothing done for God was useless. I didn’t like that I was going on a mission. If I had a better NYSC posting to a seriously minded entity I would have shelved it for work. But I decided it was the better decision than to be jobless. I called Mr Marcus Ogbonna, who was in Lagos and asked him not to influence the mission posting to the USA as I wasn’t very comfortable with the feelings of foreboding I was getting about it. He assured me that it wasn’t his decision to make with where to send me or any missionary. I left after the NYSC and returned to Aba to wait for my mission call.

 

A few months after I received my NYSC discharge certificate, I received a phone call from Mr Michael Ajayi. He told me that he had opened my mission call envelop, containing the mission call, and which was the letter shown here. I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would anybody open another’s mission letter? I thought the excesses of Mr Michael Ajayi were getting out of hand. But he had been helpful somewhat but that didn’t give him the right to assume he was me. It was my job to open my letter. And a mission call was a letter! Anyway, he was the one who revealed to me that my call was to the USA. I think Mr Marcus Ogbonna had called to break the news to me. So, when Mr Ajayi called I wasn’t even happy anymore. It wasn’t supposed to be a community project. I didn’t sit well with me that that call had to be for Mr Ajayi. Or for his daughter Lara Ajayi. OK, that’s going too far. Mr Ajayi was the district president. Maybe it was customary for him to open the mission calls of his district members. It was there and then that I knew that the mission was a bad call. I should have waited to return to Aba, to know if the ‘madness’ would have been any different.

I prepared and went on a mission. As they say, the rest is history. I misplaced my phone on my way from Lagos when I had been given visa to the United States. I had answered a call from a cousin who allegedly lived in London only a few minutes earlier as I was returning. People boarded the bus in Owerri as the driver made some money on the way. I was probably being tracked without my knowledge. I lost all my contacts as the phone was gone with them. It was a very unhappy me who left for the USA. I did some shopping in Aba before I left. I didn’t like all the attention and envy the mission call was giving me. I wasn’t sure that the USA was all it was cut out to be. There were tales of evil in the USA. Why should anybody be excited about them? Nine-Eleven had taken place barely four years earlier. I was still traumatized from watching the plane fly into the second WTO on BBC. And there I was going to board a plane possibly for the first time in my life. Yes, it was the first time in my cognitive years to actually have to board a plane and it wasn’t funny. At Ehere in Aba, the Okeres were green with envy and I didn’t understand. They had a sibling in the USA attending the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The most outspoken was ThankGod Okere. He was full of praises for Nelly Metus and advised me to live up to all that I claimed in my form. I didn’t know what I claimed that I was out of the ordinary. I was already a degree holder from the University of Ibadan and had observed the National Youth Service Corps. Nobody had told me that it was taboo to attend a mission after the NYSC. They were notorious for writing incessant petitions against other people to Salt Lake City, Utah, complaining about the inadequacies of other church members and I leadership. If they wrote any letter to Utah before I got there I wasn’t to know. His father was often accused of pedophilia and I wasn’t sure he wrote any letter talking about it. Oh, it was the Mormon sin for which they got driven from Ohio and Illinois? I even encouraged the sister, Chinelo Jennifer Okere, to consider a mission while waiting for the NYSC. She had allegedly finished her education from Madonna University where she studied Mass Communication. She would later serve her own mission to Cote d’Ivoire. Good French opportunity I would have had.

In Lagos, one Umah Kalu from Ohafia wanted to know how I got my mission call to the USA. I told him the same way he got his to Lagos or Enugu mission some years ago. He was a returned missionary, as those who had done the Mormon missionary service were called. He insisted and asked me to speak with him in confidence. I told him that there was no magic and that I wasn’t sure anything was different about me. He insisted on buying me lunch and we went and ate lunch at Sweet Sensation in Ikeja and ate Fried Rice and chicken. I hadn’t heard much about beguiling people – the English word for Yahoo – tricking people by first getting them to trust you. I took out the Endowment a mandated part of the missionary work in the Aba Temple on October, 2005. One crazy fellow missionary from Ohafia has since been going after every date in my life like her life depended on it. I never realized how my mission was an Ngwa mission. The Umah Kalu needed his niece one Onyinyechi Umah to go on a mission to the USA. I didn’t know how and why. She was already an undergraduate at a university, why the hurry? He said he didn’t mind her quitting school to go to the USA. I didn’t understand the desperation as I would be going on my mission after my undergraduate studies. One of the women in the USA, Victoria Kajo, I would learn, went on a mission after having studied Law. I learnt about this nearly before I boarded my flight to the USA. I assured Umah that it was up to the Lord to take her wherever he needed her to serve him. We ended our lunch hour and that was the last time I met him. I didn’t know what I would be getting on the mission to the USA and nobody gave me any orientation, not even the mission president in Ibadan. God forbid. Wasn’t the taste of the pudding in the eating? Must all missions be done where I was going to do mine?

All those mission enquiries made my case an odyssey rather a venture. I didn’t understand the special interest in me. Why not in the other women, who were already in the USA? I never met them nor knew what qualified them to be in the USA. Nobody had mentioned them to me until I was in Mr Ogbonna’s office as a bishop, not the one as travel coordinator. I had submitted entries in the church’s international magazine competition twice and got only consolation prizes before and while at UI. I probably was the only African to have worn a prize. I’m not sure. I probably wasn’t even the first or the only Nigerian to have won the prize. I was only interested in making money. Not the fame as it got me only enmity and hatred. I was only trying to make the African known to the world. Must a continent be known only for their genitalia? I never understood people, especially Ngozi Okoro, Chastmier Okoro’s sister who thought my prize was worthless. While it wasn’t the best entry, I got something or nothing since many have enjoyed their fame in Mormonism without the New Era magazine in their life. Why do people go to church full of guild and envy? Haba. It was bad enough being LDS in Nigeria. Being shamed or envied by a fellow LDS Church member was sacrilege in my book. Nigerians are probably the worst envious and covetous animals in the whole Universe. They do nothing and expect everything back from other people. I hate secret combinations. I’m never in any.

I got set apart by Mr Taylor Harper in Ibadan, Oyo State office. I had stayed with the Ajayis as I had to collect my mission call from Mr Michael I. Ajayi. It would seem that I was going after the Ajayis. First, it was gaining admission into their precious University of Ibadan. Later, getting posted to the Air Force Comprehensive School at Ile Igbon for the NYSC and now a mission call to the United States of Ajayi, sorry America. I didn’t know who was working against the Ajayi family of Ibadan. Not me. I wasn’t ever interested in the English Letter A. What’s with that though? A mad person must be behind that nuisance and I have to bear the brunt. You know, when it came to it, I wasn’t sure what I was taking from them. But if they were aggrieved it did seem that I was running after their precious Letter A. In due course, their daughter, Lara Ajayi, was posted to observe her own NYSC in Abia State and at St Joseph’s College, Aba. She was the only corps member posted to her place of primary assignment in that batch. I begged to stay in her bedroom while I attended the setting apart exercise in Ibadan. This was one of the reasons why I refused to return to Ibadan after the crazy mission was over. I didn’t have a house nor was I going to put up with anybody white or black ever again. I was becoming ever the pest, wouldn’t you say? Wrong calculation, it must have been, all on my part. But I live with the consequences and I’m cool with them. That was how I got my mission call to Utah, United States of America. It wasn’t be supe. It wasn’t through gossip gossip. It wasn’t by man know man, except Mr Marcus Ogbonna failed in by influencing the call. Except Mr Taylor Harper was settling scores with me, which was unknown to me. Hmmm….

C – Celibacy or Crime/Camaraderie/Celebrity

A – Atonement or Avarice/Aversion

L – Lack or Laxity/Laziness

L – Leverage or Levity

Missionary Work as Sport

So, back to missions being a sport or a call. A Sport is for enjoyment, for pleasure, for a prize. I didn’t enjoy my mission. I didn’t have any pleasure and I didn’t win any prizes. I got home safe and sound, that was all I got for a reward oh, and that $100 bill from the Fourth Nephite. What was the pittance for even with instructions in it? I was called a district leader twice or once since I had an extension for the second, never a zone leader or an assistant president. I had crazy companions. They probably all talked behind my back. I never saw anybody naked, male or female. I’ve never kissed a woman, lady or girl all my cognitive years of my life. I wondered if they were detailed to be my guard rather than fellow missionaries. My MTC companion was close associates with the mission president’s family, the LeBarons. I wondered how that was a mission and not a tryst. Of course, there was no reason to believe anything was going to happen that was rude or sacrilegious. 

What qualified me to be in the USA as I had never known or been with a white person, male or female? I don’t do inter-racial sexual relations. Am I racist? Mbakwa o. But Ms Shumway (is that a real name?) hammered on her relationship with the LeBarons’ granddaughter, Stephanie, that it was like saying, ‘Don’t mess with me.’ Or as they say, ‘Don’t mess with Texas.’ Let me say, with mission as sport, I put it to vote. Where do you fall? The Stewarts didn’t make it any better for me. It appeared to me that they were asked to make the new Nigerian missionary Obasi my companion. There was clear conspiracy against me on Temple Square. It wasn’t a gathering of nice people who came to preach about positive values. My gifts were stolen on Temple Square. Even an umbrella that other people took home was stolen and nothing was done about it. No, with Temple Square, Mormonism became a hoax.

S – Sacrifice or Sacrilege

P – Privilege or Pedigree

O – Opportunity or Opportunism

R – Reverence or Recalcitrance

T – Testimony or Treachery

Despite not going in for sport, missionaries could still get in some pleasure. There was the pleasure of getting somebody to accept a commitment. There was the pleasure, especially in the outbound, to get a non member baptized into the Mormon faith. Missionaries were given targets just like sales people. That’s to increase their motivation. It was normal. I met with some nice people but they were strangers – not the people with whom I served. Americans looked askance at me every wit. Tell me, what’s different with me? You would think that I planted the bombs that killed many people in 2001 or brought Katrina, the nasty hurricane of 2005. Whatever was their problem, I didn’t care much if it had anything to do with not breaking the law of chastity, having sex with people on the mission. What were they missionaries for? Some stole worse than Ali Baba and his forty thieves. To talk down on other people who didn’t have the right to fornicate or steal? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t ever in a same sex relation and I never knew that it would be a problem on a mission. Chai. See me, see trouble. Ashewo, I no fit do sef. I couldn’t be a harlot either. Where did people learn that nonsense creed called all you must do when in a strange place? In Young Women (a class for young girls 12-18 years) or what? In Relief Society (a place for women 18+)? I never got the handout, pamphlet or memo. Did my mother miss out on something? She had asked me to be a virgin before my marriage but ask the men that I’ve dated; I’m still trying to be a good sport and a good girl. Was I called to give sexual relief to some stranger-companion? Ukpabi Ukpabi. Wow!

Why go on a mission, bro? Why go on a mission, sis? For the money or the honey or whatever else you got to think about it. There were too much evil interest in my choice to go on a mission. I think it became worse with me calling Nigeria, I thing I wasn’t supposed to have done. But I wasn’t the only one who called Nigeria without doing missionary work with it. Ask Uduak Udo. Ask Ada Obasi. Even Nelly Metus got to know when her then boyfriend didn’t get a visa to join her in the USA. I didn’t call him for her. Udo even asked me to call the sister for her, which I did. Till date, I’ve never called anybody’s relative or friend introduced to me during the mission. What of Udo? What of Udo? What of Harrison Ikpe? What happened in Washington D.C. where Victoria Kajo served? Why was nobody interested the D.C. gossip group? Were they even LDS Church members who served the missions? I wasn’t called to any political party in the USA. I wasn’t even in the D.C. or New York area. What concerned Utah with Nigerian politics, bikonu? I never knew I was a delegate. I went as a missionary as my letter indicated. Tell me what would get me proposing to sell Nigeria or rename her? It wasn’t my job and the mission presidents gave me assignments that I fulfilled that had nothing to do with any politics or business. 

I wanted feedback and got nothing but a wall. But I’m out of that church and not interested in another. It’s not just that things have fallen apart for me for going on a mission from an evil compound and family; many evil people have been enthroned and empowered including those who called themselves my friends. I had no idea I was in a business delegation. People who came on the mission after me and knew practically nothing about missionary work were made to feel superior to me especially the white women. There was political underpinning for such maneuvering. It was uncalled for. If a companion complained about me, nobody told me about it. I chose not to complain about difficult companions especially Karen Larsen to the mission. Companions were probably privy to my personal life while nobody shared their stories with me. I never saw such lack of respect for fairness like on a mission to the USA, to the primary offices of the organization. You thought you would go to the USA with renewed interest and zeal for a faith that allegedly suffered persecution. After the mission, I wasn’t on their side any longer. But on whose side am I? I’m on no one. I didn’t subscribe to domination. I didn’t subscribe to slavery. I was never asked to tell what to do with a companion by the seniors or mission presidency/leadership. I never request for a companion. And I made sure nobody who did had a tea on me. I wanted a mission, not a brothel. I wanted faith, not witchcraft. Are mission calls anonymous? Are missions a sport, a resort? Are they for evil people, witches and/or harlots/prostitutes? So, why go on a mission?