Mission Stories - Mission President

Sister Anderson, syster Porkka, president Anderson

The mission president is the man who leads the mission with his wife. They are called to do this service for three years - without pay, just like all callings are done in church. It is different from a senior mission in it that one can't really apply to be mission president, it's a surprise calling that comes from the church leadership. During their service, the mission president lives in the mission home, which in Sweden is a house that feels like heaven and has enough beds to accomodate quite a number of missionaries.

A mission president takes care of the missionaries and the mission, physically and spiritually. He's the one you turn to if you need to ask permission to do something or if you need to check if something is okay; he's the one you turn to if there is a serious problem; he's the one who sorts out transfers (which missionary goes to what area with who). You can think of it this way: if all missionaries are brothers and sisters, the mission president and his wife are the parents. The most important thing for a missionary is to love and respect the mission president.

My mission president, president Anderson, is a giant of a man and his approach to the mission seemed to be very much built on expecting his missionaries to behave mature and trusting them to do the right thing. I think it worked. President Anderson really is my hero and I will love him forever. When I went to the MTC, I loved the MTC president a lot and I was sad that I had to then go to my mission and have to learn to love a new mission president - but it was no problem <3 Because I had the best mission president on the planet. :) I'm glad I didn't have to go through a mission president change in the mission itself, not sure how that would have gone... I also got along great with his wife, sister Anderson, we just kind of connected.

As a missionary in Sweden, you don't really meet your mission president that much. You see him in Zone Conference once a transfer, in Sharpening where you have the interview once a transfer, and that's about it if you're unlucky. I did get to see him a little more often sometimes, for other conferences or when they visited our area, and when we visited the mission home. But by far the most used contact with the president is email.

Every missionary should write a letter to the mission president every week. In Sweden we write emails. And I took to emailing president like duck to water. I told him everything about the area, how I was feeling, if I had any problems etc... I jokingly told my companion (at the time when I was getting tranferred around a lot) that president sends me to all the areas he wants to know details about what is going on. I'm his little spy :P But it truly was so relieving to let him know everything, to kind of unload. Sometimes I felt a little silly about it, or awkward about having written stuff and them having to meet him - but overall I approached it a "he's my mission president, he needs to know how it's going with me and he won't judge." And from this unlimited feeling of trust grew an unlimited feeling of love and respect for the man.

Time for a mission story.

The first time I was properly involved in transfers was my third transfer. I was staying in Sundsvall and getting a new companion. There was a bit of a strange detour to this transfer-travel, first I had to take the train south to Stockholm with my trainer, and then I had to continue on more south to Gothenburg to go spend a few days there with my new companion before heading back up to Sundsvall (she'd got permission to stay there for the weekend for a baptism). And when we were back on our way up on Sunday evening, there was a problem. My companion was not feeling well, and the train was making it worse. Sister Anderson called and after talking to my companion told us to get off the train at Stockholm. This was all starting to get a little scary, it was getting late, I was still pretty new as a missionary, my companion was dying or something, I didn't know Stockholm (or anything) very well...

When the train pulled to the station, I started to get us off the train (missionaries always have very heavy luggage when they transfer), I headed down the aisle, then I looked back to check that my companion was coming and she was, then I looked back up the way I was headed again and president Anderson was there in front of me. And I had this amazing feeling of "phew, what a load off my chest, everything is fine now, we are safe."

President helped us off the train and into the car and we spent a couple days in the mission home, recovering and making a plan. Sister Anderson gave me small projects to do to keep me occupied while my companion recovered, and on one of the days we were invited to take part in Zone Leader Council (a historic event, they haven't had sister missionaries there before :3)


I am helt övertygad (completely convinced) that my mission president is/was inspired of God. Not only in things of transfers (I was always in the right area with the right companion) but also in other things that were under his jurisdiction. A funny story: One time our district had a bonfire. It was right after my birthday, the elders (our D.L. and his companion) came over for P-day and we had a birthday bonfire because I missed Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes day/5th of November), and my birthday is right after Bonfire Night too. It was so cool, us four missionaries in the forest, a fire, bonfire foods, cake, drinks... It was really nice, and I have very fond memories of that - although it did involve breaking quite a few rules (even numbers of elders and sisters = double date, and they are not supposed to come to our apartment...)

But some time later our D.L. was in a District Leader training, and during the conversation about how to work in unity with sister missionaries president made the point that P-day activities that are a double-date are very much not okay, "so don't have a hotdog roast with the sisters or something." Our D.L. was incredibly embarrassed, so that night we got an angry call from him asking "who the heck told president about the bonfire?" XD So we tried to figure it out, we even checked our weekly emails to president but neither of us had written about it (I still think it might have been me in a text message, this was the time when I was still texting president every night as help for a problem). My companion felt terrible, she hadn't realised it was against the rules. Then much later me and my companion were in a car with president, and we took the moment and apologised for the hotdog roast. President was a little confused, so she explained about the D.L. training and his words, and he laughed and said "yeah, I think... I think the word hotdog roast was used..." and we were all "...did he ever actually know...? What the heck is going on?!" :D It was pretty epic. A mission president is magic, basically. :P

This is a good moment to transition to this funny thing I found somewhere, it gives some light to the nature of a mission president and other things about Mission Organisation :P

And because the Church is cool like that, they have made a radio programme series on the Mormon Channel where they interview returned mission presidents. So for Mission Stories from the point of view of a mission president, head on over to http://mormonchannel.org/into-all-the-world/


The transfer board in the mission president's office.