I applied to the MISM program a while ago after completing all of my IS core classes. I earned A’s in all 8 of the core classes, but I was still rejected from the program.
I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. How much do grades in the IS core classes actually matter for MISM admission? Are there other factors that weigh more heavily in the decision?
I was sent for 2 years to Melbourne, Australia, and I have to say it was the BEST worst 2 years of my life.
Before my mission, I thought it was going to be this spiritually filled experience where I would see God’s hand every single step of the day, leading us to the Lord’s chosen and elect investigators. I imagined I would baptize families after families who all desired to follow God and join His true Church.
Of course, the reality was far from what I imagined.
In reality, it was 2 years of knocking doors for 8 to 10 hours almost every day in the Australian heat, in a place where people are extremely secular. You constantly get rejected, have doors slammed in your face, get mean things said to you, and sometimes even have things thrown at you. On top of that, you might get paired with some really difficult or even abusive companions.
So in that aspect, it really was the worst.
But at the same time, it was also the best because I learned a lot, grew a lot, and learned some super valuable lessons about dealing with people. I learned how to handle rejection, how to deal with difficult personalities, and how to keep going even when things don't turn out the way you expected.
It definitely wasn't the mission experience I imagined before I left
I was sent for 2 years to Melbourne, Australia, and I have to say it was the BEST worst 2 years of my life.
Before my mission, I thought it was going to be this spiritually filled experience where I would see God’s hand every single step of the day, leading us to the Lord’s chosen and elect investigators. I imagined I would baptize families after families who all desired to follow God and join His true Church.
Of course, the reality was far from what I imagined.
In reality, it was 2 years of knocking doors for 8 to 10 hours almost every day in the Australian heat, in a place where people are extremely secular. You constantly get rejected, have doors slammed in your face, get mean things said to you, and sometimes even have things thrown at you. On top of that, you might get paired with some really difficult or even abusive companions.
So in that aspect, it really was the worst.
But at the same time, it was also the best because I learned a lot, grew a lot, and learned some super valuable lessons about dealing with people. I learned how to handle rejection, how to deal with difficult personalities, and how to keep going even when things don't turn out the way you expected.
It definitely wasn't the mission experience I imagined before I left
I’ve been thinking about my experience in the LDS Church, and I’ve come to a difficult realization: I think I was Mormon for all the wrong reasons.
I didn’t join because I believed the Church was true. I didn’t join because I had a testimony of Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. Honestly, when I got baptized, I barely even knew who Joseph Smith was.
I joined because I desperately needed somewhere to belong.
I was an international student from Vietnam attending a wealthy boarding school in Chicago on financial aid. My family provided for me materially, but growing up there wasn’t much emotional warmth. There was no hugging, affirmation, or talking openly about feelings. Then I arrived at this school surrounded by students who came from much wealthier backgrounds than mine.
I didn’t fit in.
I was isolated. I ate alone. I was teased for being poor. I felt invisible.
Then I met the LDS missionaries and, more importantly, LDS families in Chicago.
They noticed me.
They remembered my name. They invited me to dinner. Families included me in holidays and welcomed me into their homes. People actually seemed excited when I showed up.
For the first time in my high school years, I wasn’t invisible.
I went from being the poor Vietnamese kid eating alone to being someone who had a community and a purpose.
Looking back, that feeling was incredibly powerful. At the time, I probably couldn’t separate “these people love and accept me” from “therefore their religion must be true.”
So when the missionaries taught me, I barely paid attention to the lessons. I nodded my head and pretended to agree with everything because I wanted to get baptized as quickly as possible.
I wanted to belong.
Then graduation came, and BYU-Provo became my only financially viable college option. Suddenly, staying Mormon wasn’t just about community anymore. My education was tied to it too.
The same pattern eventually repeated itself with my mission.
My first year at BYU was terrible academically. I was getting Cs and Ds. I didn’t have good study habits or much discipline, and I was frustrated and directionless.
Everyone around me talked about missions as these incredible, life-changing experiences, the “best two years” of their lives.
And I thought: maybe this is exactly what I need.
Two years in a foreign country. Learn a language. Meet people. Get away from school for a while. Learn how to work hard. Figure out what I want to major in.
It sounded like a pretty good deal.
So, again, I signed up for something religious for reasons that had very little to do with religion.
I was sent to Australia.
And the reality was nothing like what I imagined.
I spent 8–9 hours a day knocking on doors trying to sell a religious message that almost nobody wanted. I dealt with rejection, insults, and occasionally threats. I had zero converts. I lost about 45 pounds.
The strange thing is that the mission recreated the exact feeling Mormonism had originally rescued me from.
I felt invisible again.
And I still had almost two years left.
What kept me there wasn’t a burning testimony or a desire to serve God.
It was fear.
I was afraid that if I came home early, I wouldn’t be able to return to BYU. I was afraid of the social consequences of being an early-return missionary in BYU culture. I was afraid of being viewed as less faithful, less worthy, or less desirable.
The cost of leaving seemed higher than the cost of staying.
Ironically, my mission was also the first time I seriously learned what Mormonism actually taught.
I remember learning more about Joseph Smith and basically thinking, “Oh, so THAT’S who this guy is and why everyone talks about him so much.”
That probably sounds ridiculous for someone who had already been baptized and was now wearing a missionary name tag, but it’s the truth.
Deep down, I still didn’t really believe.
Instead, I tried to force myself to believe because belief had become necessary for survival. I needed it to survive my mission. I needed it to remain at BYU. I needed it to remain part of the social world I had built around myself.
Eventually I finished my mission, returned to BYU, and graduated.
And then something interesting happened.
Once I graduated, most of the things that had kept me attached to Mormonism disappeared.
I no longer needed BYU.
The community that originally drew me into the Church was long gone. Utah Mormonism also felt completely different from the small Chicago ward where I had been the new international convert everyone wanted to take care of. In Utah, I wasn't special. I was just another Mormon.
And once those external reasons disappeared, I realized there wasn't much underneath them.
So eventually, I left.
I know many people stay in the Church because they genuinely believe in Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, the Plan of Salvation, eternal families, or the idea that our trials and suffering have a purpose. Others stay because they believe the Church produces good fruit in their lives and families.
Whatever disagreements I might have with those beliefs now, I can understand why someone who sincerely believes them would stay.
But looking back, I have to admit that wasn't my story.
I wasn't a truth-claims believer who studied Mormonism, became convinced it was true, and then later lost my testimony.
I was a lonely teenager who wanted someone to notice him.
Then I became a college student who needed an affordable education.
Then I became a struggling student who thought a mission might give him an escape and some direction.
Then I became a missionary who stayed because he was afraid of what would happen if he went home.
And somewhere along the way, I kept trying to convince myself that all of those needs and pressures were the same thing as faith.
They weren't.
I don't necessarily blame the people who welcomed me into the Church. A lot of them were genuinely kind to me at a point in my life when I badly needed kindness. I'll always remember that.
I've been away from the Church for a long time and have lived a pretty worldly, atheist life. But lately I can't shake the feeling that something is missing, and it's made me wonder if I should come back. I honestly don't know where to start, and I don't know how to regain a testimony or know if the Church and the gospel are really true again. For those who have come back after years away, what helped you?
I've been wondering about something and wanted to hear some faithful perspectives. If the Church is true and led by God, why do you think it still has relatively few members compared to the world's population, and why do so many people never join or eventually leave? I'm not trying to criticize or argue against the Church, I genuinely want to understand how faithful members think about this.
Now I understand why the church discouraged people from digging too deeply into its history. The more I researched, especially the unfiltered historical records, the further my faith fell apart. What’s taught in chapel feels like a sanitized, whitewashed version compared to the actual history, which is far more complicated, messy, and difficult to reconcile
I genuinely do not understand how intelligent people in church leadership still believe this shit once they actually know the real history.
And I’m not talking about “anti-Mormon lies.” I mean actual documented history. The kind where if you applied the same standards of evidence anywhere else in life, the conclusion would be obvious.
In the secular world, truth works like this:
Here’s the evidence.
Here are the facts.
What conclusion best fits reality?
Religion, especially Mormonism, seems to reverse the equation:
“Joseph Smith is a prophet, therefore all evidence must somehow bend around that conclusion.”
Like… what the fuck?
The most blatant example is the Book of Abraham. The church literally has the papyri. Actual Egyptologists, including world-renowned non-Mormon scholars, looked at it and basically said: “Yeah, this translation is completely fabricated.” It does not say what Joseph claimed it says. At all.
A reasonable person sees that and goes:
“Oh. Then he made it up.”
But Mormon apologetics turns into Olympic-level mental gymnastics trying to explain why black is actually white and fabrication is somehow revelation.
And the thing that fascinates me is that the people at the top are not stupid. These are lawyers, surgeons, executives, academics. Many are objectively accomplished people. BYU literally teaches critical thinking, logic, academic research, scientific reasoning… and then everyone collectively pretends Joseph Smith putting a rock in a hat to translate golden plates is perfectly normal behavior.
How do you become intelligent enough to pass medical school but not intelligent enough to notice the giant pile of anachronisms, 19th-century theology, plagiarism, revivalist language, and frontier American ideas all over the Book of Mormon?
At some point it feels less like faith and more like an institution desperately protecting itself.
Joseph Smith looks far less like a prophet and far more like an incredibly charismatic religious entrepreneur. Treasure digging fails, family struggles financially, then suddenly he discovers ancient gold plates nobody can see and dictates scripture with his face in a hat. And honestly? As storytelling improvisation, it’s impressive as hell.
But calling it historical reality requires the suspension of disbelief of a Marvel movie.
What blows my mind is how Mormonism manages to produce genuinely smart, educated people while simultaneously asking them to believe things that completely collapse under normal academic scrutiny.
If any other religion had this history, Mormons would instantly call it an obvious cult.
But when it’s their own church, suddenly evidence becomes “persecution,” contradictions become “deep doctrine,” and obvious fabrication becomes “a test of faith.”
It’s honestly one of the most fascinating examples of cognitive dissonance I’ve ever seen.
Disclaimer: sorry if some parts sound AI-polished. I originally rage-wrote this whole thing with terrible grammar, fragmented thoughts, and zero cohesion, so I used AI to clean up the sentence structure and readability. But the content, opinions, frustration, and arguments are 100% me