Feelings of failure common among early-return missionaries, study says [Mormon mishies]

KSL.com ^ | Nov. 5, 2013 | Celeste Tholen Rosenlof

[Colofornian]

OREM — Missionaries who return early from their service need additional help from ward members and clinical professionals to cope, a new study says.

Kris Doty, Ph.D, chair of the Department of Behavioral Science at Utah Valley University and a clinical therapist, led a team of students in studying the effects of a missionary’s early return on their faith and lives. Doty found that 74 percent of participants had feelings of failure and 65 percent were uncomfortable in social settings due to early release...

The 348 study participants were males and females, ages 20-29, who returned early from the mission field...

The study, which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not involved in, was conducted this year after Doty saw the negative effects on loved ones and students...

More findings:

Early-returning perceptions of their adjustment

74% had feelings of failure

65% are uncomfortable in social settings due to early release

46% feel confident stating "I'm an RM"

44% feel uncomfortable answering questions about their mission

40% felt pressured to go back out

37% report dating life adversely affected

37% feel connected to those who completed mission

SNIP

She was surprised to find so many early-returned missionaries experienced feelings of failure and perceived the reaction of family members, friends and ward members negatively.

SNIP

Missionaries with mental health concerns, homesickness, physical health problems or worthiness issues who returned early felt increased feelings of failure, while those who came home because of family issues or lacked personal testimony in the church were less likely to experience feelings of failure...

Of those who felt they were received poorly, many reported long-term effects including a period of inactivity or permanent inactivity and 47 percent surveyed reported they were less active at the time of the study than before their mission...

[Colofornian]

Note: KSL is owned by the Mormon church.

From the article:

Kris Doty, Ph.D, chair of the Department of Behavioral Science at Utah Valley University and a clinical therapist, led a team of students in studying the effects of a missionary’s early return on their faith and lives. Doty found that 74 percent of participants had feelings of failure and 65 percent were uncomfortable in social settings due to early release...

Cont'd:

More findings:

Early-returning perceptions of their adjustment

74% had feelings of failure

65% are uncomfortable in social settings due to early release

46% feel confident stating "I'm an RM"

44% feel uncomfortable answering questions about their mission

40% felt pressured to go back out

37% report dating life adversely affected

37% feel connected to those who completed mission

Cont'd:

She was surprised to find so many early-returned missionaries experienced feelings of failure and perceived the reaction of family members, friends and ward members negatively...Missionaries with mental health concerns, homesickness, physical health problems or worthiness issues who returned early felt increased feelings of failure, while those who came home because of family issues or lacked personal testimony in the church were less likely to experience feelings of failure...Of those who felt they were received poorly, many reported long-term effects including a period of inactivity or permanent inactivity and 47 percent surveyed reported they were less active at the time of the study than before their mission...

[SoothingDave]

I hate it when I have “early release,” too.

[montag813]

Good...maybe they’ll stop going to Latin American countries and coming back to pimp for illegal alien amnesty like the corrupt LDS leadership is, and as Sheriff Joe-slamming douchebags like Judge Murray Snow did.

[Jack Hydrazine]

The only thing better than the articles you post are the responses you get from the Mormon FReepers who have a real problem with what you post. Those responses alone are worthy of a separate thread.

[Gamecock]

Are they shunned or something?

[Utah Binger]

lacked personal testimony in the church were less likely to experience feelings of failure

I was pretty much convinced at age 19 that lots of things were not right for me. I went anyway. After all who wouldn't go to Denmark? I certainly didn't have feelings of failure but didn't come home early either. That would have been a social disaster as the culture has a way of demeaning those poor kids coming home early for what ever reason.

In my case I came home, graduated from college asap and got out of mormondum by taking a job in California. And yes up until 1963 those were the best two and a half years of my life. I learned to speak a foreign language, met Dexter Gordon and Ella Fitzgerald in the Jazz clubs of Copenhagen and became an expert in cooking Danish food.

Was it dishonest to spend the $60 per month sent by my parents? I will apologize next time I see them. Celestially speaking.

[laotzu]

Is this not a beautiful morning? God certainly does great work.

He deserves our praise, glory and song. But instead....

WARNING!! Religion bashing ahead

[Elsie]

Feelings of failure common among early-return missionaries, study says [Mormon mishies]

I'll bet that NEVER beens feel like failures a lot as well!

[Elsie]

I'll bet that NEVER beens feel like failures a lot as well!

Beats being a WHORE I guess!!

---

  "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent"

 

 (The Seer, p. 255  Orson Pratt )

[Elsie]

Those responses alone are worthy of a separate thread.

NAh...

Then they'd get lost in cyber space.

How 'bout it boys and girls...

Do any of YOU feel like a failure??

[Elsie]

Was it dishonest to spend the $60 per month sent by my parents? I will apologize next time I see them. Celestially speaking.

You are BAD!!!

No 'Forever Family'© for YOU!!!

[Elsie]

WARNING!! Religion bashing ahead

---

INDEED!!!

---

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[laotzu]

WARNING!! Religion bashing ahead... INDEED!!!
(yes, thank you nancy. you should be very proud)

[laotzu]

"As a practicing and respectful Catholic, abortion is sacred ground to me"
--Democrat Nancy Pelosi

Beware those claiming religious authority, who only tear down religion, but never actually offer praise to God.

[Utah Binger]

Eat yer suppe.

[freedomlover]

Uh oh - someone isn’t perfect - A good shunning is in order!

[Colofornian]

Beware those claiming religious authority, who only tear down religion, but never actually offer praise to God.

I praise God, Laotzu that He created you!

[Colofornian]

Uh oh - someone isn’t perfect - A good shunning is in order!

(Yeah, ya got that right...'right' as in the righteous of the righteous)

[Elsie]

I’m so proud to expose the heresy that calls itself Mormonism that it makes me humble!