Mission Memories

A priesthood lesson on missionary work got Eldon thinking about his mission in San Diego and he came home and wrote his memoirs. It's rather long, so read it when you have some spare time. Mom

San Diego Mission Memoirs 2002-2005

How did we get into this uncomfortable position?

Church headquarters maintains a pool of about 1000 potential mission presidents.  These names have been recommended by stake presidents, general authorities, and serving mission presidents. Each year about 400 of these men are given an “availability interview.” Based on the results of these interviews, the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency then picks 140 of these individuals to be called as mission presidents for the next 3 year period. A member of the first presidency issues the call. The specific mission is assigned at a later date.

When we got the phone call it went like this:  Janeil answered the phone. The caller said, “Hello may I speak to Dale (my middle name). Janeil answered “There isn’t any Dale here.”  The caller then said, “Is there a Gale?” Janeil handed me the phone and said, “This sounds like some international graduate student calling from the University.”  I took the phone and very slowly articulated, ”Hello, this is Eldon Dale Olsen.” The caller said, “Hello, this is President Monson.”  I thought to myself, “I don’t know any President Monson. Maybe he is a stake president from the Portland Area who wants to reserve Camp Alpine for a girl’s camp next year.” 

After a few seconds it clicked. I said “Do you want me to give you my social security number to make sure you have the right person?” President Monson laughed and asked how my five grown children were doing. He evidently had a dossier on me. He probable mistook “Eldon” for “Elder” when he read my name. President Monson chatted about the Swedish Mission. He asked who my mission President had been (1960). I responded, “President Omer.” He replied, “Oh, I knew Gideon,” (which was President Omer’s first name. 

He never did ask us if we would accept the call. He simply assumed we would. He said we would get a letter in the mail confirming the call.  

Then started a whirlwind of activities. Ken agreed to move his family into our house while we were gone. I canceled the contract I was negotiating with the OSU College of Business to teach the next year. Janeil gave notice to retire from her job. We got physical exams and started listening to training tapes sent by the missionary department. 

About a month later we got an express letter from Salt Lake saying we had been assigned to San Diego. The following morning I called my Mom to tell her where were going. She said “I already know, it was published today in the Church News.”

I was set apart by L. Tom Perry. The responsibility became activated once I set foot in the mission several days later. We got a two hour orientation by the departing couple and were on our own from there.

Far from family and friends.

We were not permitted to leave the mission boundaries, but could have all the family visits we desired. Since San Diego is a great vacation destination year round, we got a couple of visits from each of the kids and their families. 

The mission home was a mansion with plenty of guest bedrooms so it was a fun place to host visitors. I even built a climbing wall out of the fireplace rock chimney in the living room. The grand kids enjoyed picking grapefruit and oranges from the trees in the yard. 

The mission lasted for 1100 days. It seemed like a long time to me. We really missed the green forests and rain of Oregon.

Getting in hot water with visiting Apostles.

Elder Ballard came to dedicate a chapel in the El Centro Stake in the Imperial Valley. He held a meeting with the Bishops to see how the missionary work was going. One of the issues that came up was that our Mission required investigators to attend 4 sacrament meetings before they could be baptized. I had set this policy based on the statement in Preach My Gospel which used the term “several Sacrament Meetings.” It had previously been one sacrament meeting.  

Elder Ballard stopped Janeil and me in the hall asking, “Is what the Bishops told me true?”  “Yes,” I responded. “Whose idea was that?” he asked. “Mine,” I said. “Does the Area President know this?” (Elder Robbins, the Area President was my direct supervisor.)  “He allowed each Mission President to interpret what ‘several’ meant,” was my reply. “We’ll talk about this later,” was Elder Ballard’s response. Janeil started to explain why 4 was a good choice. I stepped on her toe to silence her opinion. The Head of the Missionary Department for the Church doesn’t need a lecture on missionary policies. He “wrote” the book on it. Well, the end result is that ‘several’ means ‘two.’

Elder Scott met with the missionaries on his way to another assignment.  I picked him up at his Hotel after getting dressed in a hurry.  I had grabbed the wrong suit coat which was too small and mismatched the pants. I decided to just meet him in my shirt and tie.  Janeil said, “You can’t greet an Apostle in your shirt sleeves”. I put on the coat but it was so tight I couldn’t button it.  Elder Scott never said anything, but a few days after his visit the accounting department in Salt Lake called and asked if I needed an increase in our monthly stipend to buy some new clothes. I told them “No thanks, we are doing okay.”  They responded, “Alright, but let us know if you need help.”

Elder Hales came to preside over a stake conference and meeting with all the military personnel in the area. The stake president usually sends a letter inviting Janeil and me to the stake conference and gives us speaking assignments. No letter came, so I figured we weren’t invited. Janeil thought we should attend anyway, but I said it would be “crashing” and we stayed home. Well, late that night I got a phone call from the Elder Bullock, the seventy who was accompanying Elder Hales. “Elder Hales asked why you weren’t at the meetings on Saturday?” was Elder Bullock’s question. “I wasn’t invited,” was my response. “You should have been there,” was his reply. “What is my function?” was my not too tactful reply. “Your function is to sit and listen to what an Apostle is telling us,” was his curt answer. He talked non stop for about 15 minutes and ended the phone call with “It has been nice talking to you.”  He had done most of the talking; I listened. I had never met him before, but the next day we were sitting on the stand about 20 minutes early. Later, Elder Hales had me say a few words to the congregation. I never talked personally with Elder Hales or Elder Bullock again.

It wasn’t prohibited in the White Handbook.

The Missionary Handbook is a pocket sized white booklet with the policies guiding missionary behavior. It is a great reference and was the LAW as far as I was concerned.  Whenever a missionary got in trouble I would call him on the phone and ask him, “What did the White Handbook say about that kind of (inappropriate) behavior?”

Elder S had been going to the tanning parlor and getting tanned in the nude with his companion out in the waiting room reading magazines. When I told him that he shouldn’t be doing it, his reply was, “But it wasn’t in the White Handbook.” That elder needed close supervision!

Purges

Periodically the mission as a whole starts to drift into questionable activities. It starts with a few elders getting away with something and then the grapevine spreads the news. This was especially true of the Spanish speaking missionaries because they often meet together in a more relaxed hispanic atmosphere.  

Every mission has an issue with what is appropriate listening music. The previous Mission President had a very strict policy of only songs from the church hymn book. I read the missionaries the statement from the general authorities which used the phrase “the missionaries are to select music that is spiritually uplifting....”  I told the missionaries I expected them to exercise their mature judgement. About 18 months later it had got out of hand in a few instances. We had the elders bring all of their CD discs to the next round of interviews with me.  These individual personal interviews were scheduled each 6 weeks. The missionaries would car pool and arrive in groups of 4 to 6. While I was interviewing each individual, Janeil had the rest of them play a short snippet from each of their CD’s and then ask the group to give a thumbs up or down on whether the disc should be mailed home. It turned out being a lot of fun, but a quite a few discs were mailed home.

Another fad was weight lifting equipment.  On transfer day some elders needed a member to bring their belonging in a pickup truck because of the barbells and benches.  The White Handbook encourages the missionaries to keep their belongings pared down to two suitcases. I told the missionaries that if they wanted to squeeze a couple of weights into their suitcases it would be okay but they better be ready to hike a couple of flights of stairs with the suitcases in each hand while I watched.

The In-field Representative (IFR)

The missionary department has seven experienced men as “round the clock 911” help.  Each of these men have about 20 missions assigned to them. I had to call about once a month. It usually involved sending a missionary home early. The first time it happened was a traumatic experience. The IFR would ask me some follow up questions like, “What does the tattoo look like?” The IFR would say, “Wait a minute while I go down the hall and talk to the apostle who is on duty.”  He would then come back and say, “Let’s call the stake president right now and get his input.” After talking to the stake president we would occasionally book a flight home for the missionary. This was the hardest thing for me to do because I knew it would adversely affect the missionary for the rest of their life. 

Trying to work with a renegade missionary was a real balancing act because he usually was dragging down his companion and others.  Fortunately, most missionaries responded to my trust and repented. I went out on a limb for a lot of missionaries. The IFR would usually say, “Okay, it’s your call, but I would keep a close watch on this one.”

My IFR was Brother L.  He sometimes would say, “That missionary needs a 4 by 4 by 10. This means it would take 4 doctors 4 hours to get my number 10 shoe out of his butt.” That its how you felt sometimes.

We had an elder with citizenship in South Africa. He had been going to BYU and neglected to get his student visa status changed. The deportation authorities contacted us and said he had 10 days to get it straightened out or he would be sent to South Africa and not be allowed to apply to emigrate to the US for 10 years. In any case, his mission days were over.  He had only been out about 3 months. It turns out that the elder was a recent convert and older than average. He had a girl friend back in Utah who was a United States citizen. You can guess how this one turned out. He proposed on the phone, we flew him home and released him from the mission, and he got married within the 10 day limit. The IFR helped guide me through this sticky wicket.

Where is your adult supervision?

Elder W had been in the mission only a few weeks when his dad (a colonel in the Army) called me. The son and his senior companion had invited a 20 year old homeless guy to stay with them. The homeless guy had been thrown out of a shelter for pulling a knife. I found out when we got a big phone bill charged against the elder’s apartment that the guy had been making drug deals in the middle of the night while the elders were asleep.  The elders had good hearts but poor judgement. I had them kick out the guy immediately. The father asked me, ”Where is your adult supervision?”

There was no adult supervision other than my wife and me.  We did have three wonderful couples who serve in the office.  They took care of the cars, apartments, finances, correspondence, furniture, phones, mail and reports.

Where is your companion?

Elder J was an older than average district leader. I had given him a unruly companion who had run away twice before. Both times the runaway turned himself in within a day.  This time the runaway had not taken his suitcase or scriptures so we thought he was on another of his brief get-a-ways. When I called at 6 am to see if the runaway had returned, Elder J had been sleeping on the couch waiting for Elder G to return. I told Elder J to check their bedroom. When Elder J put on his glasses there was Elder G sitting on the couch next to him. It turns out Elder G had left a door to the church unlocked. He returned late at night to “explore” the pipe organ mechanics in the church basement. Elder G stayed for his whole 24 months on the mission.

Can I talk to Sister Olsen?

Janeil handled the health issues, which was a huge task. Most of the Monday phone calls I got started with, “Can I talk to Sister Olsen?”  Monday was our mission’s preparation day when the elders did their laundry, shopping, and played basketball. We had dozens of “I think I broke my ankle.” None of the ankles were broken, just sprains.  The other common ailments were constipation, upset stomachs, headaches, and pains that moved from one part of the body to another. Insomnia, depression, toothaches, poison oak and eye injuries were also common. The most serious medical incidents were seizures, bulimia, and pancreatitis. And one of the Senior sisters died of cancer.

We had a wonderful Medical Advisor who lived in the Los Angles Temple housing complex. He was on call 24/7. He would talk to the ailing elder over the phone and give sympathy. He was 100% accurate with his diagnosis over the phone after hearing the elder describe the problem.  When the doctor said, “Get him an appointment with a specific specialist” we did it immediately. We had 55 missionaries (10%) go home early.  Most of these were for medical reasons. If we told the IFR in Salt Lake that the area doctor recommended the elder be sent home, then the IFR arranged the plane flight and the elder was homeward bound the same day.  One sister was suicidal and they arranged for her mother to come and accompany her home.

President, we’re out of money

The missionaries got their monthly food allowances added to their debit card accounts the last week of each month. On the 5th I got a phone call from a pair of elders saying they had no food and no money. The elders had unexpectedly been transferred to a new apartment. They said they had spent their entire monthly allowance buying food a few days earlier which they left in the previous apartment for the set of elders replacing them in the old area. I had the finance missionary print out a list of the charges on the elders debit card for the previous two weeks. There were charges to Cold Stone Ice Cream and several fast foods places. Janeil and I put together a “care package” which contained spaghetti, rice, canned soup, and peanut butter and wished them luck making it to the end of the month.

My patriarchal blessing says I will teach the Gospel in a foreign tongue

This newly arriving elder says he wants to be assigned to a Spanish speaking ward and given study time to learn Spanish because his patriarchal blessing promised it. I told him he had been assigned as an English speaker by Salt Lake. He insisted there was a mistake. I got out my copy of his missionary application papers. He had taken no Spanish classes in high school or college. On the blanks where it asked if he thought he would be successful in learning a foreign language he had written “no.” He got poor grades in high school. He pouted for a few days and then demanded that he either be reassigned or be sent home. This is called a return “on own insistence” and the elder’s stake pays the bill for the plane ride home.  

I want to interview anyone being baptized into my Ward

One of the Bishops was unhappy with the poor quality of converts being baptized into his ward. They created a lot of extra work for him and other ward members. He said he wanted veto power over anyone being considered for baptism. 

I called Elder Christensen, the seventy who was advising me, about the request. The answer was, “Absolutely not. Tell that Bishop that if his ward members would invite their friends to hear the Gospel from the missionaries then the elders could stop wandering the streets talking to bums and drunks because those are the only people they can get to listen to them.”

That was sure a long meeting

Janeil usually sat by my side in the car with the map book open. She would study out the destination in advance and then navigate as we drove. One night I had to go to a meeting by myself. It was to a building I’d been to before so I got to the meeting okay in the daylight. But when I started for home in the dark I made one wrong turn after another. I was circling San Diego on several different  freeways. After about two hours i finally found our house. Janeil said, “That was sure a long meeting.”  I said, “I put on about 70 unnecessary miles and have been on every major freeway in the area.”  There was one saving grace. The Pacific Ocean was on our west side so I could only get lost in three directions. Also the Mexican border was on the south.

One time in Baltimore when we had a hard time finding a place because the streets were so irregular and a street sign had been turned by vandals, I got fed up and said, “We’ve GOT to do better!” Janeil took it personally and was offended. After I was in bed asleep she tried to call one of the kids to get sympathy. The only one she could reach was Carl. After she cried about her frustration he said, “Go buy a GPS.” We did the next day and joked from then on that the GPS probably saved our marriage!

Freeze your credit card

Some elders struggled with controlling their hormones. Elder R had been making midnight phone calls for sex chats on 800 numbers. He would charge it to his personal credit card. I suggested that he put the card in the freezer in a block of ice. He finally gave up and said he was leaving. His companion said, “I’m not driving you to the bus station.” I told the companion to go ahead and take him and have the elder call me when he got to Georgia. The elder had bought his own ticket home. When I called the IFR in Salt Lake the next day I really got chewed out for not following correct procedures.

On his 60 hour bus ride the elder gave out several copies of the Book of Mormon. He  also taught several missionary lessons to fellow passengers. After being home for a couple of months the elder said he wanted to return. I told him he belonged at home and should get busy going to school.

I’ve got the gift

There are a few parents who would back seat drive. Elder B had been covertly taking anti-depressants being sent by his father. This type of self medication was strictly forbidden. Missionaries on medications had to be properly monitored. When confronted the father refused to comply. When I asked the stake president for help he sympathized with me saying the guy had an enlarged ego problem.

One of my favorite elders had a mother who had “the gift”.  She had a dream where she saw her boy sitting wounded in a bullet riddled car. She first demanded that her boy be transferred out of the high crime area where he was serving. We had to promise never to assign him to a bike riding area. (I couldn’t understand this since the dream involved a car.) 

I finally told her that she could not call me any more. She needed to deal with me through her stake president. She continued to call the office being abusive to my sweet office staff. They did their best to be kind. She felt she was dying of cancer and would not last until the mission was over. She flew out to San Diego to see her son one last time. I let the elder go see her in the hotel. He lasted the whole mission without further incident. She did die a year after he got home however.  

Double Dates

Two elders started jogging in the morning with two sister missionaries. I suppose they thought they were protecting them. They soon separated into twosomes. Next the elders started driving places with the sisters and going to their apartment. They started kissing. The elders convinced the sisters that they loved them romantically. The one elder snuck over in the night and was making out horizontally with the sister missionary.  Finally the sister could no longer live with her conscience and confessed to me. I called all four of them into the office and interviewed each separately. Once I got the complete story I called the IFR. He seemed to have a check list. He would ask me questions like were they clothed or naked. I would call in the missionary, get the answer, and then talk to the waiting IFR. The IFR would ask me another question which I couldn’t answer and then I would call in the missionary again. I wished the IFR would just give me the complete list all at once. It seemed sequential as one answer would lead to another question. After the IFR consulted with the apostle, the decision was to send all four of them home. I protested saying that the sisters had been seduced and that the elders were repentant. The one elder had come from a polygamist family and had gone through an extra rigorous interview process before he was cleared to come. Salt Lake agreed to let me “hang myself” and keep the missionaries with a whole set of restrictions. They could not communicate by letter, phone, or in person. I had to keep all four of them separated geographically for the rest of their missions. This turned out being quite a challenge. All four of them finished honorable missions.