Exactly 25 years ago, I completed a two-year mission for the LDS church. In the final hours of my mission, I had the first of two encounters with Robert D. Hales, of whom some of you might know.
First, some background. As an overachieving eldest child, I approached my mission with the same fervor as my other endeavors growing up. I gave everything. The Austria Vienna Mission is acknowledged as one of the most difficult in the world. Certainly it is one of the least “successful” based on conversion rates. But I pretended not to notice. I worked as hard as anyone, knocking on countless doors, staying out till my body ached. I often fell asleep, exhausted, during bedtime prayer. Like a maniac, I would study German during the 60 seconds or so between doors, using 3x5 index cards.
But with understanding of language, comes understanding of culture, and I came to realize that in Austria, what we were doing—approaching strangers on the threshold of their homes and asking to come inside to discuss religion—was not the way. But this is what our “inspired” mission president commanded us to do, and I reluctantly dedicated myself to it.
I was soon promoted to District Leader. Then the call came to serve as Mission Secretary. I worked alongside the Mission President in the mission home (and felt my confidence in his abilities ebbing away as I did). Maybe that’s why he later called me as Zone Leader. (kidding)
Being Zone Leader in Vienna was the Holy Grail for me. I had a year left at this point, and I planned to make the most of it. My strategy was to work-in new approaches to proselytizing alongside the dreaded tracting. I saw that the urban setting offered a rich palate of opportunities for reaching out to people. I got a city permit to set up an exhibit in the city’s main shopping area. I spent time in parks playing chess or other games to connect with people. Ate lunch in the university cafeteria. In other words, tried to be less of a weirdo.
I’ll never forget the day I experienced the mother of all breakthroughs. I was “splitting” with a newly arrived, astonishingly talented Elder with an amazing singing voice. (He was a music student and today is an accomplished opera singer with an impressive resume. I’m reluctantly withholding his name. He was the pivotal player in our subsequent success—but I’m getting ahead of myself.)
We were in the main pedestrian zone in the central city, the Kaerntnerstrassse. It’s one of the truly awesome public places on the planet, with a backdrop of stunning architecture and commercial activity, where people from all over converge and celebrate. Street musicians are one of the many entertainments, and it occurred to me that there might be an opportunity for an aspiring opera singer in, well, the capital of opera. So I encouraged this Elder to place himself somewhere and start singing.
As he somewhat nervously began to sing, the sweet floating melody of “Ave Maria” stopped people in their tracks. We were stunned, and elated. After an enthusiastic applause some people hung around and talked with us. At that moment, I didn’t care if I didn’t knock on another door the rest of my mission. It was like we had cracked the lock on the famous Austrian reserve.
But it didn’t stop there. We soon realized that there was an abundance of talent in our zone, and we formed a singing group. We worked in a little dancing, and appropriated a guitar, and wrote a couple of skits. You get the picture. It was pretty innocuous: folk songs, a little opera, primary songs, Saturday’s Warrior stuff, infused with small doses of comedy. It was entertaining and we always attracted big crowds; sometimes a hundred people or more would gather. We even got a write-up in the paper. We’d meet a couple of times a week on the street and perform. Those missionaries that weren’t singing worked the crowd, handing out pamphlets and getting into conversations. We were giddy with the success—Austrians never, ever, let themselves be approached like that in other contexts.
This is the kind of heady thing that today would be championship material on “The Apprentice,” if not “American Idol.” :) But in the real world of mormon missionary-ing, I was hanging myself. Rumors began to spread about those disobedient Viennese elders who were having way too much fun and “breaking the rules.” After a few weeks the Mission President decided to shut us down. When I confronted him about it, he “busted” me as Zone Leader, and packed me off to the farthest village in the mission, deep in the Austrian alps, as junior companion. I had dared to have my own ideas, and I was going to pay.
Well, for the remaining four months I didn’t knock on another door. Instead I mostly hung out and struggled with difficult questions. For the first time in my life, I stopped to think. I was coming to understand that a person of my disposition might not have a place in the church. But more importantly, I was maturing in my beliefs. I was beginning to suspect that, if there was indeed a God, the Mormon God might not be it.
For example, what God would direct its servants to continue knocking on doors incessantly but unsuccessfully, yet expect a different result? Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Of course the obvious retort is that it’s not about success, it’s about discipline and obedience. Well, maybe so, but I was getting the feeling that I had been duped. That wasn’t how it was explained to me before the mission. I was told that, when you obey the commandments, you get rewarded for your sacrifice. But I was afraid the only thing I was getting out of it was a huge future therapy bill as a result of two years of mental, and yes, physical abuse.
It didn’t help that during this time, I got into a discussion with a member of a cult (Hare Krishna). It was a weird conversation, and I remember thinking afterward how thankful I was not to be in a cult, and as I had these thankful thoughts I had this funny feeling.
Well, fast forward now to the last day of my mission. As it happens, an all-mission conference is scheduled for that day, and every elder in the mission is there. Elder Robert D. Hales, the European Administrator and General Authority, is presenting an inspired new program that is going to guarantee the longed-for and well-deserved increase in the baptismal rate. And it’s basically just a fancy new reporting system with more door-knocking involved. At some point, I ask if tracting might not be…well, you know the rest. It went down like a load of bricks. Two other senior elders publicly ridiculed me and basically called me lazy. Hales was giving me the eye the whole time.
Later, because I’m a groveling idiot, I approached Hales in the foyer and asked if he had a moment. He started to walk off, mumbling something about having somewhere to go and basically making clear that the last thing he was going to do was waste his time with someone like me. So I just started talking. I said calmly that I had been a dedicated missionary and that I didn’t understand how there could be such animosity toward me. His reply was that I needed to work harder at having the spirit.
The following week, I’m in Frankfurt, Germany with my mom, who grew up there. We’re visiting relatives on the way home from the mission. I spent a summer here when I was 17, and ever since then I’ve thought it would be cool to find a job here and live for a while. Maybe even go to college here.
Well, as fate would have it, I hear though the grapevine about a possible job at the Church’s European Headquarters, which happens to be in Frankfurt. So I call, and the personnel director is interested. He interviews me and ends up offering me a job. So three weeks later, I’m back in Germany. Now remember, the big boss here is--you guessed it--Elder Hales. And he sees me in the hallway. He doesn’t greet me, but he goes to the personnel director and tells him that I will not be working there.
When I ask the personnel director to give me an explanation, he suggests that I talk to Elder Hales myself and sends me down the hall. The secretary lets me in, and Hales has me come into his office. I sit down.
His first question is: What are you doing here? So I explain that I have roots here. He is not impressed.
I end up getting a lecture that amounts to this: I have no business “returning to my mission field.” (I try to explain that Germany and Austria are actually two entirely different countries and not the same mission at all. This doesn’t work.) My place is in the States. I need to be married within a year.
He asks: “Do you realize that if you are here, and you get married like you’re supposed to, that you will likely end up marrying a German?”
At this point my heart is beating very fast. Not only does this guy seem to be suggesting that there is something wrong with Germans, but he is telling me where to live, when to get married, who to marry (or, not marry), and where I will work (or, not work). The whole thing smacks of totalitarianism. He thinks he can order me around as if he owned me. My mouth is dry, and my thoughts are like a cassette tape getting pulled out and left on the floor in a tangled mess.
Then this realization rises from deep inside: some 40 years earlier, in a place very near here, my grandfather must have felt the same way, as the Fuhrer ordered him into the Reichsarmee to fight a perverse war for a criminal, totalitarian regime. He never returned. His last words to his young family, when they bade him to “come back soon,” were: “The good men don’t come back, only the bad.” I know he meant this as a cynical joke, but at this moment, sitting in front of this man who claims to have total authority over me, it cuts me to the bone.
Postscript: I left the Mormon Cult not long after this incident. I stayed in Germany for another six years. They were some of the “best years of my life” and that is truly one of the best decisions I ever made. I eventually enrolled in the Polytechnic University in Frankfurt and received a degree in architecture. Today I have a thriving practice and I love my profession. And yes, I got married in Germany—but to a Dutch girl, so I guess that’s o.k. :)
Mr. Hales has gone on to become an Apostle and who knows—maybe he’ll be the “prophet” one day!
