Out of the Missionary's Closet

By Johnny Townsend

As a former Mormon missionary, author Johnny Townsend understands LDS mission culture. In these stories, a young missionary can't get permission to see a doctor about the lump on his testicle until he can convince his mission president he isn't masturbating. A sadistic mission leader torments a young missionary. A sister

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johnny Townsend
• Release date: Jun 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961525085

Johnny Townsend

A climate crisis immigrant who relocated from New Orleans to Seattle in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Johnny Townsend wrote the first account of the UpStairs Lounge fire, an attack on a French Quarter gay bar which killed 32 people in 1973. He was an associate producer for the documentary Upstairs Inferno, for the sci-fi film Time Helmet, and for the deaf gay short Flirting, with Possibilities. His books include Please Evacuate, Racism by Proxy, and Wake Up and Smell the Missionaries. His novel, Orgy at the STD Clinic, set entirely on public transit, details political extremism, climate upheaval, and anti-maskers in the midst of a pandemic.

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Contents

I Know What You Did Last P-Day

Missionary Gaydar

A Problem at the Factory

Getting My Companion Laid

The Couples Mission

Seductive Reasoning

Two-Transfer Mission

Under the Covers

Helping the Hookers

Movie Night with the Missionaries

Miracle at Salt Lake City International Airport

Donating to a Good Cause

Prayer Circle Jerk

The Chains of Paradise

The Danish Danite

Swimming in the Sound

Missionaries by Moonlight

Starting a Leper Colony

Books by Johnny Townsend

What Readers Have Said

I Know What You Did Last P-Day

As Mormon missionaries, we often joked about how the FBI and CIA and NSA would try to recruit us after we completed our two-year service. They know we’re upright and trustworthy, one or another of us would say, so they’re anxious to have us work for them.

What I learned by the end of my stay in New Jersey, though, was that if U.S. intelligence services did hire a disproportionately high number of Mormons, it was more likely because as missionaries, we’d gained a taste for spying and wanted to work for them. It explained my cousin Roger on my mom’s side and my dad’s brother, Samuel, who worked for the FBI and CIA respectively.

We weren’t supposed to know about Samuel, but of course we did. So I learned from an early age how to keep secrets, which seemed to be the flip side of spying. Perhaps our family was more enthused about these things than the average Mormon, but if so, I doubted it was by much. At family gatherings, we liked to joke, The glory of God is intelligence services.

In our daily morning devotionals as missionaries, in our district meetings, and in our zone meetings, we discussed our investigators—anyone who might be showing some mild interest in the gospel—and our member contacts—usually inactives we were trying to bring back into full fellowship in the Church. We reported on their use of alcohol, tobacco, and any other restricted substances. We reported on the modesty of the women’s clothing if the men we were teaching were married, any sexual impropriety we could convince them to confess to naive, virginal men.

We reported on any other types of contraband we may have spotted in their homes, perhaps a DVD with an R-rating or a CD with an explicit warning label. We learned to search for clues as our God-given right, but to do so in as clandestine a manner as the situation warranted. We didn’t want to scare away our contacts. I never even bothered to worry about what kind of effect living this kind of life might have on us personally.

It wasn’t until my last month in Hackensack that I finally realized why sharks sometimes ate other sharks when they smelled blood in the water and began a feeding frenzy.

It started when I received a phone call early one morning before my companion and I left the apartment for the day. Hello? I said. President Mortensen? So said the Caller ID.

Elder Fielding, President Mortensen replied, are you alone?

No, I said. Of course not, I wanted to add. Missionaries were never alone. My companion was just a few feet away. We weren’t even allowed to close the bathroom door when we were showering, though thankfully that action was permitted if we were defecating. Not, to be clear, if we were simply urinating. This may not have been the rule in every mission, but it was the case in ours.

We were also not allowed to sleep in only our garments. We had to wear pajamas at night. When I first arrived in New Jersey, my trainer had even inspected my garments for cum stains each week before I did laundry, only giving up when I convinced him the one time there was such a stain that it was a result of a wet dream rather than sexual depravity.

Can you step into another room so we can have this conversation in private? the president continued. President Mortensen had only asked for a private phone conversation with me once before, the time he suspected my new companion might be gay and he’d asked that I keep an eye open for clues I could report back. The only thing I’d ever noticed was that Elder Pace seemed to hum a lot of songs from Jersey Boys, but he swore that was just to help him feel acculturated to our mission area.

Sure, President. I made some vague hand gestures which Elder Cunningham wouldn’t have been able to interpret even if they’d meant something, and I took the phone into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I felt daring, like Nephi heading to ask Laban for the plates. I felt a thrill as I sat on the toilet lid fully clothed, the closed door separating me from my companion. I was about to be told some momentous secret in confidence.

That’s not one of the sister missionaries on the phone, is it? asked Elder Cunningham from the living room. He’d heard me say the president’s name, obviously, but it wasn’t as if missionaries didn’t lie. My previous companion had said he was emailing his family back in Idaho but had really been contacting a teenage girl in his last district. It all came out when the girl’s parents reported my companion to the mission president.

I got into just as much trouble as Elder Allen did for not catching him myself.

What is it, President Mortensen? I asked. What’s all the secrecy about? I turned the water on in the sink to make it harder for Elder Cunningham to make out what I was saying. This almost certainly had something to do with him. Two companions ago, I’d been asked to monitor my companion in his sleep, because he was known to beat off at night.

Monitoring had been awkward, of course, because at night I kind of liked to sleep myself. I did catch him once, though, and encouraged him to report his failure to President Mortensen on his own. After he agreed, I called the president to tell him the situation. It was uncomfortable accepting kudos for such a thing. I felt kind of like Joseph Smith receiving a revelation giving us the Word of Wisdom after Emma complained about wiping up tobacco spit.

The president sighed. It’s a serious matter, Elder Fielding, he began slowly. One of the members saw you looking at porn on the library computer on Preparation Day.

I was too stunned to respond.

So it’s true then?

N-no, President! I spluttered. "I was not looking at porn! Who said I was?"

Doesn’t matter, President Mortensen continued. We know it was you, Elder. You may as well confess.

But it wasn’t! I said. I emailed my friends and family, like I always do, but that’s it. I almost explained that my father was going through a rough patch, so I may have been at the computer longer than usual, but I didn’t feel like getting into those kinds of details right now. I didn’t even check any news websites.

I’d been chastised earlier in my mission when my companion reported me for looking up articles on current events. What in the world could I have been looking at last P-Day, I wondered, that someone might have mistaken as porn? Some ad I hadn’t even noticed before I was able to log into my email? My girlfriend had Dear John’ed me three months earlier, so I wasn’t even getting photos of her anymore. And those had always been modest even when she still missed me.

I didn’t plan on going into one of the intelligence services at the time of our relationship, but I instinctively knew to avoid anything that might be used as blackmail against me later. I might someday want to go into politics, too. So I only dated worthy girls. It was also the reason I gave up porn three years ago after looking at it just the one time.

Elder Fielding, there’s no doubt in my mind. I know it was you. The member mentioned you by name. They didn’t just say ‘some missionary.’ And your stake president told me you had trouble with porn before your mission. There’s no point lying about it.

I felt dizzy. I knew everyone was doing their best to look out for me, but I didn’t feel protected. I felt like...like...I struggled to think of a comparison. Then I remembered a book I’d read in high school, The Count of Monte Cristo, the part when Edmond is falsely accused of treason.

I felt guilty for not automatically thinking of a scriptural example instead of a secular one.

How could I look at porn in public? I said. With all those people around? This was like the time during our interview at zone conference a couple of months earlier when he’d accused me of masturbation. After I’d truthfully denied it, he told me that all missionaries had a problem with it. All of us? I’d asked. Aren’t you a missionary, too, President? Isn’t Sister Mortensen?

I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, but the mission president had immediately ordered me out of his office. He didn’t pursue his accusation any further, but I also didn’t feel like I had won anything. My companion at the time had told me later after his own interview that while the president hadn’t said anything specific to him about me, he got the sense I should probably not be expecting to be promoted to district leader anytime soon.

I know how these public libraries operate, President Mortensen said. They put that little sheet of plastic on the computer monitors so that only the person sitting directly in front can see what’s on the screen. It would be easy for you to look at porn in public.

But...but if I’m the only one who can see what’s on my screen, how could this member know I was looking at pornography?

There was a moment of silence. Then the president coughed. The member apparently walked right behind you while you were on the computer. And you were looking at the screen, which is why you didn’t notice the member.

Well, I don’t know what they saw, but it wasn’t porn.

Elder Fielding, you’re only going to make this worse for yourself if you keep lying. The member mentioned you by name.

Yes, you already said that, I thought to myself. The repetition was becoming annoying. Why that person’s word couldn’t be questioned while mine could wasn’t clear. I wondered if someone I’d inadvertently offended was seeking vengeance. My trainer had told me he hid a pornographic magazine in his companion’s suitcase and then sent an anonymous tip to the zone leaders about it, as payback after his companion gave him too much lip.

But the accusation against me could be more innocent, I reasoned. Perhaps there were other elders in the area who looked like me from behind. Okay, President, I said. Maybe the member isn’t lying. They’ve just got me mixed up with someone else. It wasn’t me. I swear on the Book of Mormon.

Elder Fielding, I’m going to ask you one last time. And remember, your ability to remain a missionary in this mission completely depends on your answering honestly. He took a breath. Did you look at anything inappropriate on the library computer?

I wondered if it were safer to confess to something I hadn’t done than continue to deny it. What if the president sent me home in disgrace? My life would be ruined. My father would leave the Church for sure. But I was also a little irritated, and my youthful indignation finally rose to the surface. President Mortensen, you can ask as many times as you please, but the answer will always be no. You can have the library staff look up my browser history if you like.

There was another, longer moment of silence on the line. Finally, though, President Mortensen seemed to relent. Okay, Elder Fielding. I believe you. I have the power of discernment, after all. I can sense you’re telling me the truth. The member must have been mistaken.

I breathed out, not realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Don’t tell anyone else about this, he said. Not even your companion. Rumors will get started, and that will be bad for the mission. And for you personally.

Okay, President.

Now, can you go out and hand the phone to Elder Cunningham?

What for?

Never you mind.

Sure, President.

I walked out of the bathroom and handed the phone to my companion, telling him the mission president wanted to speak to him privately. I knew the president was going to ask my comp if he’d seen me looking at porn, that he still didn’t believe me, and it irritated me to no end. Those rumors were going to get started, all right, no matter how quiet I tried to be about the conversation.

At what point did spies turn into gossips, I wondered. A few minutes later, Elder Cunningham walked out of the bathroom with a worried expression, looking at me fearfully, as if I were the Devil.

Fetch.

What did you guys talk about? I asked.

Nothing.

There was a strained silence until we left the apartment half an hour later. I’d hoped getting to work might help us return to normal, but the strain lasted the rest of the day, though things finally seemed to settle down in the evening when we had our cookies and milk before bed. The next morning, we gathered for a district meeting with the other two companionships in the district, at the apartment of the district leader, Elder Maxwell, and his companion.

We were all still chatting before the meeting started when Elder Maxwell’s cell phone rang and he picked it up. He frowned, walked into the bedroom, and shut the door. Despite my own experience the day before, I figured the district leader was talking with one of his investigators, perhaps someone who was canceling or rescheduling a lesson. Cancellations happened regularly.

But when he came back into the living room, he looked ashen. What happened? I asked.

He shook his head in response. Then he handed the phone to his companion and told his companion to go in the bedroom and talk to the mission president. It wasn’t until Elder Thompson returned looking as shaken as his companion that I finally figured it all out. He just accused you both of looking at porn, didn’t he?

Their mouths fell open.

And he accused you, too, didn’t he, Elder Cunningham?

I didn’t do it! he said. I promise!

He did the same thing to me yesterday! both of the other elders shouted at the same time.

Elders, I said, President Mortensen has accused each of us of looking at porn in the library. We stared at one another in confusion. He doesn’t have any clue if it actually happened. In fact, I don’t think there was any member who saw a missionary looking at porn in the first place. The president’s just trying to psyche us out. I suspected I was the first elder he’d called from our district, that he’d put a little extra energy into his conversation with me. But then, it was possible he was a fair, equal opportunity accuser.

But why would he do that? Elder Maxwell asked. Elder Thompson and I just baptized someone.

He’s playing both good cop and bad cop, I said. Maybe he was practicing interrogation techniques. I’d heard that some retired Mormon men with certain skills worked for intelligence agencies, too. Being mission president gave them good cover. Maybe he was ordered to do it by his own superiors, though, and was only following orders. Maybe he’d had a dream about us.

Or perhaps he was just bored.

That doesn’t answer my question.

I’m tempted to call him back and say we all looked at porn together during district meeting.

NO! five other elders shouted simultaneously.

There really was no clear answer to the district leader’s question, so we just continued with our meeting as normal. Only today, after we reported on the moral failings of our investigators and inactive member contacts, the bad taste it left in my mouth lingered longer than usual. As the meeting neared its end, we each listed the goals we’d set for the day and the upcoming week. But when it was my turn to speak, I said simply, I really need to do something after the meeting to bring the Spirit back.

Okay, Elder Maxwell said. Inviting the Spirit was frequently a topic of discussion among the missionaries. After a day without finding a single new contact, it was often a challenge to feel the Spirit again. Sometimes, that was the case even after a teaching appointment, if the lesson hadn’t gone particularly well. And almost always after a day-long zone conference.

I think Elder Cunningham and I will spend a couple of hours walking dogs for the SPCA. It was our usual service activity. We’d already volunteered our two service hours for the week by this point, but I decided we needed more. It never occurred to me to question why doing secular service felt more inspirational than doing our regular missionary work. But I think it was probably because sometimes, walking a dog as a missionary made me feel I was doing undercover work, pretending to be a civilian. Perhaps I was mistaking that thrill for the presence of the Holy Ghost.

The thing was, despite our shared experience of facing false accusations, the elders in our district didn’t become any more unified as a group. In fact, I was about to find out that the environment had only been made less stable, when Elder Maxwell whispered to me if I thought his companion was telling the truth, and Elder Cunningham whispered he