I had a long-time friend who worked in the Confidential Records at the Church Office Building, and I would write to her frequently, as a means of venting all that was going on. She always believed me, because she told me she was reading the dismissal reports from the mission president firsthand. I felt if I tried to vent to anyone else, it would seem too over the top.
While it was sad to see and frustrating to deal with at the same time, I felt more sorrowful for the "good" missionaries who chose to up and go home because they refused to believe that they were amongst the Lord's servants or that this was the Lord's work.
I vividly remember the final time that I tried to talk to my mission president about the mess. It was during zone conference interviews. The night before, we had another set of elders sleep over, because they lived 45 miles from where we were meeting and had no ride. They stayed up until 3am playing cards, listening to rap stations on the radio, and berating the sister missionaries. Elder S, my district leader, said, "The sister missionaries need to get raped, because if they knew what a man felt like, they wouldn't be out here wasting everyone's time."
They were insulted that I left their "party" and went into the bedroom. They shouted every vulgar name at me that you can think of, that has to do with either male or female genetalia.
When I talked to my mission president about it, his response was, "Elder S wouldn't talk like that! He's a good kid! Why are you being so cynical?"
As stated earlier, from then on out, I vented only to my friend in the COB.
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