Where did you serve and why is your mission the greatest?

I served in the California San Fernando Mission



I loved it. From the ghetto of the valley to the richest of the richest in the hills.



One day you would see Jay Leno waving to you, as he passed by in one of his awesome rides. The next day, you would see some of the greatest miracles within your own area, by the "average" member.



Our dinner calendar never. Never. Had an empty slot. We always had a family member to visit at night for dinner. We got to see the Gospel being lived in their own home. Truly amazing, considering how difficult it is to live the Gospel at times. They definitely raised the bar for me.



The people in Cali are very stingy BUT its way over balanced with the genorosity of the Christ-like people. Member or not.



One poor man had nothing. Nothing! His broken down house with broken windows and holes in his roof... Opened his house to other homeless people. They all had their own living qtrs, and he would make sure they were all taken care of AND the missionaries, before himself. I have never seen a more selfless man(except Christ) in my life AND I fear I will never see another Warrior like him, until Christ. A True Warrior!



That's why my mission was the greatest. Even better than yours ;) Because my mission had people like this Warrior on all levels.



Where did you serve and why is your mission the greatest?

My mission was almost the exact same. I went to Croatia and Serbia. From the bombed out buildings of the Yugoslavia Civil War/Break up to the minefields on the sides of the highways.



Our dinner calendar never, NEVER, had a filled in slot.



My favorite experience was riding a bus from Belgrade to Nis and the bus blew a tire. Our driver asked if anyone had a knife or something to help cut the blown out tire off and get the parts that were stuck in the wheel well. I happened to have a Swiss army pocket knife that they wound up using. Then when they saw who we were, they were afraid we were cult members who had caused the blowout so we could preach to them. We were stuck for several hours on the side of the road. Good times.

I went to the Canada Winnipeg Mission. The crime and violence center of Canada! I can count on one hand the number of families that ever had us over for a meal. The summers would see temperatures in the 90s with 95% humidity and the winters would get to -40 (one night we had a -70). Our mission president told us to keep on tracting even though we never taught any one because for every 10 doors we knocked on in Winnipeg there was a baptism in Brazil!



It was an absolutely fantastic mission, and now the good members of Winnipeg are getting a temple, and Gary Crowton to be their offensive coordinator.

Mars wrote:


I wasn't very righteous, so I served an English-speaking mission in the United States. I did learn stuff though. Good stuff.



And that's why I is the best.

I was on my mission (Miami, english speaking) when one of the speakers at general conference talked about strongest missionaries staying in the states. I remember because my mom made a big deal out of it...maybe it comforted her knowing that her son wasn't a total failure by not going foreign, haha.



As far as my mission goes, just listen to Will Smith's "Miami". It actually a pretty accurate representation of the rich parts. Move a block or two away from the beach though, and you get some the most violent areas in the country. Best part was huge variety of cultural backgrounds. I taught people from just about every south/central american county and all the Caribbean islands. Amazing food too! Some of my favorites were Haitian and Argentinian BBQ.



Also, if I decide to become a homeless bum, I'll move to Key West. Those bums have it good!

I think I was in the same mission as SpiffCoug, and I had a few dinner appointments, but we quickly learned that dinner appointments would take you out of commission in one way or another--the food was either so awesome and abundant that you couldn't get out of bed the next day, or you were sidelined by the rancid meat the member foisted upon you.

Mission Peru Lima Central. We had the coast, the high Andes (including Machu Picchu), and the Amazon rainforest. The people were, mostly, very warm and the Church is growing like crazy. The food is actually VERY good (did you know the potato comes from Peru?), except for chuno, which are freeze dried potato balls that taste like death. Oh, and if you thought the MTC in Provo was bad, you should check out the prison in Peru they call the CCM.

tmoney35 wrote:
I was on my mission (Miami, english speaking) ...

Isn't English-speaking in Miami considered a foreign language mission?

Argentina Buenos Aires South and because you really had to be willing give everything including your life for that mission. While I was there we had a death, a shooting and a couple knife wounds. I had a gun stuck in my face twice and we were mugged at least every other month.



Other than the ones trying to rob and kill us the people were the best in the world. In fact in one area my companion and I taught a bunch of thugs who were about to mug us when we decided to walk up to them before they could do the deed.



As far as BYU football on my mission, the church newspaper after BYU beat Texas A&M in 1996 was in our apartment for the next four months and at our January zone conference our mission President told us he was going to give us a late Christmas present and then wrote 19-15 on the chalkboard and asked us if we knew what it meant. The best part was no one had any idea.

SpiffCoug wrote:

I was on my mission (Miami, english speaking) ...

Isn't English-speaking in Miami considered a foreign language mission?

I was in the Tampa mission and there were many times we saw the bumper sticker "Would the last American out of Miami please bring the flag"



PS the Tampa mission at the time had the Church's Deseret Ranch, Disney World and the Space Center in it. It also funny how many general authorities would visit in durring the winter ;) We had two the the three first presidency visit us durring my time there

ABYUFAN wrote:

tmoney35 wrote:
I was on my mission (Miami, english speaking) ...

Isn't English-speaking in Miami considered a foreign language mission?

I was in the Tampa mission and there were many times we saw the bumper sticker "Would the last American out of Miami please bring the flag"

Yesterday... I was offered to move to Miami. If I go, I'll make sure that flag hangs high.



Nuttin' like some Latin Salsa ;)



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I was fortunate to serve in Madrid, Spain when they opened up the temple there. I'd say that was probably the highlight of my mission. I lived for a while in old town Madrid for several months and loved walking the aimless streets. Pan cartas in el Gran Retiro, sitting on the metro just to sit. Sitting on the steps of the royal palace with free "books" for anyone who wanted one. P-day trips to Segovia, Toledo, Don Quixote's windmills.



Made up for not teaching or baptizing. Ever.



Actually, I take that back. We did teach a lot of Ecuadorians.